Comment by nmz787

I do part time work packaging FIBbed gizmos, the 'machinist' has done at best a 50nm diameter aperture in metal film (from what I recall, maybe it was 100nm) using a beam diameter of 10nm. This is on a machine that was new 20 years ago (newer machines are probably 5 to 10X better in terms of hardware these days, maybe 50X in software). Also, ASML is researching multi-beam electron steppers and getting more traction lately: http://semiengineering.com/multi-beam-market-heats-up/ (from 2 months ago)