Additional to what has been posted already, the shape of the lines (which ultimately will result in transistors) is defined by manufactured patterns on quartz g

Additional to what has been posted already, the shape of the lines (which ultimately will result in transistors) is defined by manufactured patterns on quartz glass photomasks[1]. AFAIK a modern processor design has a stack of around 40-60 masks placed in sequence for the light to pass through. Producing these photomasks follows a similar manufacturing process from a lithography POV, except that electron-beams[2] are used instead of a light source. The mask manufacturing process requires its own specialized machines and Intel owns companies that produce those, eg. IMS Nanofabrication[3]. [1]: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/mask https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/mask [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_lithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_lithography [3]: https://www.ims.co.at/en/ https://www.ims.co.at/en/