The success of the semiconductor industry is based on the ability to fabricate hundreds of millions of devices on a single chip. In order to fulfill the ever-shrinking feature sizes, the industry requires new patternable materials in order to operate in the sub-50 nm regime. Molecular glass (MG) resists are a new type of patterning material that has gained considerable attention over the past few years. This Research News article describes the chemical and structural aspects of MGs as well as important concepts of MG resist design. We also highlight some of the recent advances in high-resolution patterning capabilities with next-generation imaging tools.