Probably, the most important application of nanotechnology is the manufacturing of microchips. By reducing the dimensions of the chip components their number on the chip can be increased, making them even faster because the electric signal has to travel less distance between them. The dimensions of chip components cannot be reduced in size any further with today's manufacturing methods, because photolithography does not permit the manufacturing of particles with dimensions of 100 nm or less. Therefore, new methods are investigated, based, either on the same physical principles as photolithography, like LIGA, which is a deep etching process based on lithography, electroplating and molding or on completely new ideas.