Use of supercritical fluid for low effective dielectric constant metallization

An embodiment of the invention is a method of manufacturing an integrated circuit. The method includes forming a capping layer of a back end structure (step 706), drilling an extraction line from the capping layer to an inter-metal dielectric layer (step 708), performing a supercritical fluid process to remove portions of the inter-metal dielectric layer that are coupled to the extraction line (step 710): thereby forming a denuded dielectric region. Another embodiment of the invention is an integrated circuit 2 having a back-end structure 5 coupled to a front-end structure 4. The back-end structure 5 having a first metal level 22. The first metal level 22 having metal interconnects 15 and an inter-metal dielectric layer 19. The back-end structure 5 further containing an extraction line 24 and a denuded dielectric region 25 coupled to the extraction line 24.