Then your nitride is of poor quality - perhaps PECVD? I've measured the ethcrate of Si-rich LPCVD sini in 5% BHF to 0.4 nm/min. (giving etch-rate ratio between oxide and nitride of ~200!) regards, Peter Andreas Rasmussen Postdoctoral Research Fellow MIC - Institute for Nano and Microtechnology Technical University of Denmark Phone: (+45) 4525 5732 Mail: pra@mic.dtu.dk http://www.mic.dtu.dk/