Don Tennant is known for “Tennant’s Law” relating the throughput of top-down lithography technologies to the fifth (5) power of resolution. This is an empirical observation which so far holds universally, regardless of which particular technology one looks at.
Against that backdrop, Don reviews progress in and issues facing nanolithography technologies in the September/October issue of JVST A. When considering the goals of the various multi-beam (and multi-probe) tools being developed, the fifth power is worth remembering in order to appreciate just how hard it may be to hit the throughput targets and then to continually improve resolution!
Ref: Donald M Tennant, Progress and issues in e-beam and other top down nanolithography, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 31(5), Sep/Oct 2013, 050813 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.4813761]