etched away first and then the shorting bar is removed by the same process in the region of the second via both the second and third metal layers are etched away the shorting bar is sized with a relative width narrow enough to allow the same etching recipe to perform the etching for the embodiment shown the shorting bar width is only 5 u03bcm whereby side etching occurs faster than top etching and the shorting bar is eliminated in its entirety during the etch the total etching time in the process step is the same as if no shorting bar was present in the embodiment shown the second metal layer is thicker than the first metal layer resulting in poorer step coverage the second metal constituting the shorting bar is surrounded by the second via therefore any tunneling etching along the poor step coverage of the second metal is confined by the second via the area of the second via is shown in section view in fig2 b after the wet etch showing the removal of the shorting bar the first embodiment disclosed with respect to fig1 2 a and 2 b relies on a metal layer as the shorting bar which is removed in one etching step near the end of the array processing a second embodiment which relies on multiple shorting elements in different layers is disclosed in fig3 a u2013 c and 4 this embodiment provides a first shorting element in a thin metal layer employed.