Dry cleaning method for recovering etch process condition

A method of patterning a substrate is described. The method includes establishing a reference etch process condition for a plasma processing system. The method further includes transferring a mask pattern formed in a mask layer to one or more layers on a substrate using at least one plasma etching process in the plasma processing system to form a feature pattern in the one or more layers and, following the transferring, performing a multi-step dry cleaning process to substantially recover the reference etch condition. Furthermore, the multi-step dry cleaning process includes performing a first dry cleaning process step using plasma formed from a first dry clean process composition containing an oxygen-containing gas, and performing a second dry cleaning process step using plasma formed from a second dry clean process composition containing a halogen-containing gas.