Abstract: A process for manufacturing gallium arsenide microwave circuits makes use of a nonphotosensitive acid resist as an adhesive for holding the "front side" of a gallium arsenide wafer onto a substrate while operations such as etching "via holes" into the wafer are being performed on the "back side" of the wafer. The process comprises front side processing, spinning the nonphotosensitive acid resist onto the frontside of the GaAs wafer, baking the protective acid resist coating onto the wafer, spinning the acid resist onto a substrate, joining the wafer to the substrate, thinning the wafer, and performing backside processing.