An ion projection system suitable for production of IC’s is described. Self-supporting metal masks are imaged with a demagnification of 10 : 1 onto a wafer. The resolution of the system is below 1 μm. Direct structuring of oxide and metal layers without any resist, pattern transposition with thin inorganic resists (40 nm) into semiconductor layers and pattern generation in organic resists is described. Exposure times per chip in the order of magnitude of seconds for all these materials are achieved.