Microelectronic processing to fabricate electronic devices on Si has been extensively studied and well characterized for several decades. This type of processing has been extrapolated for the fabrication of devices on other semiconducting materials such as group III–V materials, SiGe and SiC. However, the structural damage and its functional implication are still not fully understood for sensitive materials like InP. The present work investigates the lattice strain induced by the inductively coupled plasma dry etching process on InP stripes fabricated after masking the stripes with plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition-grown SiNx. High-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy observations allowed us to deduce the strain at different locations in the fabricated stripes. Local strains in the range of 10−3 are observed, which should strongly modify the material carrier behaviour.