Patterning techniques used in the manufacture of integrated circuits, semiconductor components, thin-film circuits, and printed circuits. The techniques are used to create or transfer required patterns from masks to a substrate surface using energy-sensitive materials known as resists.

The most common technique is photolithography, but in VLSI applications where the dimensions of the pattern to be transferred are of the same order as the wavelengths of the light used other techniques have been developed. See electron-beam lithography; ion-beam lithography; X-ray lithography.