85 is spaced from the absorber pattern 82 by a rigid inner support 86 and a soft or resilient outer frame 87 which surrounds the inner support 86 in the embodiment of the assembly 79 a shown in fig1 the inner support 86 has rounded corners 86 a and the outer frame 87 has rounded corners 87 a a vacuum space 83 is defined between the mask substrate 81 and the pellicle body 85 the vacuum space 83 is defined by assembling the mask substrate 81 and pellicle body 85 on the inner support 86 and outer frame 87 in a vacuum chamber not shown the inner support 86 and outer frame 87 prevent air from leaking into the vacuum space 83 from outside the pellicle mask assembly 79 and disrupting the integrity of the vacuum pressure in the vacuum space 83 a sixth embodiment of a pellicle mask assembly of the present invention is generally indicated by reference numeral 99 in fig1 and 17 and includes a mask 100 having a transparent substrate 101 and an absorber pattern 102 thereon a hard pellicle 104 having a transparent pellicle body 105 is spaced from the absorber pattern 102 by a rigid support 106 which typically has a generally u201c h u201d shaped cross sectional configuration as shown in fig1 and extends around the perimeter of the absorber pattern 102.