For industrial application of an electron beam direct writing a single‐layer‐resist (SLR) process is more attractive than a multilayer‐resist process, because the SLR process is less expensive and provides a precise pattern transfer for 0.2‐μm large scale integration circuit fabrication. Three key factors for SLR process are (1) high acceleration voltage for clear latent image, (2) high‐contrast resist to attain a high‐aspect‐ratio pattern, and (3) rapid dissolving resist with little effect on the substrate. With 50‐kV acceleration voltage an aspect ratio of resist pattern of about 5 is obtainable using a chemically amplified resist. However, pattern collapse limits the maximum aspect ratio for smaller resist patterns. A positive‐tone resist (PSR) and negative‐tone resist (RE‐4200N) showed excellent characteristics for a SLR process with a 0.2‐μm feature size.