Method of fabricating an integrated orifice plate and cap structure

A method comprising:

• fabricating an integrated orifice plate and cap structure having an orifice bore, a convergent bore adjacent the orifice bore, a cavity to protect an actuator, and a descender to receive a fluid and discharge the fluid through the convergent bore to the orifice bore, the fabricating comprising:
• forming the orifice bore on the front side of a product wafer;
• coating side walls of the orifice bore with a protective material;
• grinding the product wafer from its back side to a final thickness;
• forming a first hardmask for subsequent cavity formation and subsequent convergent bore formation;
• forming a second hardmask over the first hardmask for subsequent descender formation;
• forming a softmask over the second hardmask for the subsequent convergent bore formation;
• etching a latent convergent bore using the softmask as an etch delineation feature;
• etching the descender using the second hardmask as an etch delineation feature;
• and
• anisotropic etching the convergent bore and the cavity using the first hardmask as an etch delineation feature.