Lithography and etching are the technologies at the core of present-day semiconductor manufacturing. Micron-sized patterns of wiring and transistor circuitry are printed on silicon monocrystals that comprise the substrate, and other semiconductors are added in line with that pattern, while chemicals or lasers are used to remove certain parts. Thanks to these technologies, which are ideal for mass production, electronics has advanced by leaps and bounds.

The adaptation of lithography and etching for nanomanufacturing could be seen as a logical step, given the huge amount of knowledge accumulated from printed circuit manufacturing that could be put to use.

There are, of course, all sorts of problems involved in using the same techniques at the nano level. Photolithography (the use of light to print circuit patterns according to the principles of photography) is particularly problematic for the same reasons that optical microscopes are useless at the nano level: the wave properties of light get in the way. For such reasons, electron or ion beam, nanoimprint, dip pen, X-ray and various other lithographic technologies have been developed.