Presently available electron‐beam lithography systems for submicron lithography have minimum beam sizes or edge resolution on the order of 0.1–0.2 μm. Satisfactory proximity correction, linewidth control, and profile quality are critically dependent on beam size. Moreover, variations in beam size about the expected size can result in severe degradation of linewidth control. In this paper, we will examine the relationships between linewidth control, beam size, and proximity correction and show that it is possible, but difficult, to successfully use electron‐beam lithography under these conditions. High resolution vector scan electron‐beam systems with known Gaussian beam sizes are used to produce features down to 0.25 μm in single and multilayer resist. It is shown that the beam size and forward scattering must be included in the proximity correction of submicron patterns. The effects of varying the beam size are also investigated and it is shown, for example, that an increase in beam size of only 0.02 μm ...