By incorporating a material exhibiting a high adhesion on chamber walls of a process chamber during sputter etching, the defect rate in a patterning sequence on the basis of an ARC layer may be significantly reduced, since the adhesion material may be reliably exposed during a sputter preclean process. The corresponding adhesion layer may be positioned within the ARC layer stack so as to be reliably consumed, at least partially, while nevertheless providing the required optical characteristics. Hence, a low defect rate in combination with a high process efficiency may be achieved.