Solid state: Fast electron-beam lithography: High blanking speeds may make this new system a serious challenger in producing submicrometer ICs

Electron-beam lithography may become competitive with optical methods for making integrated circuits. The step that could make this possible is an electron-beam lithography system developed at Hewlett-Packard that is potentially many times faster than previous machines for making ICs through direct writing on wafers or generating high-precision masks. The Hewlett-Packard system has a beam spot-corresponding to the smallest pixel that can be written-with a diameter that can be varied from 0.5 to 0.25 μm.