Abstract: A low pressure process is described for the anisotropic etching of a titanium or tantalum silicide layer formed over a polysilicon layer on a gate oxide layer, and then masked. The etch process is carried out at a low pressure of about 10 milliTorr to about 30 milliTorr using Cl.sub.2 and HBr etching gases, preferably only Cl.sub.2 at the etching gas, to etch the silicide without undercutting the mask layer. In a preferred embodiment, etch residues are also eliminated by the use of only Cl.sub.2 as the etching gas in the low pressure etch step. In the most prefferred embodiment, any bulges which might otherwise remain in the sidewalls of the underlying polysilicon layer, are also eliminated by using only HBr as the etching gas in the over-etch step, which is highly selective to oxide to protect the underlying gate oxide layer; resulting in an anisotropic etch of both the titanium/tantalum silicide and polysilicon layers, without leaving etch residues on the wafer surface.