Our civilization is based on the capability to create and use functional objects starting from raw materials. In this sense" making objects" is probably the most important activity of human life. Over the centuries we have developed a large variety of tools that allowed us to manipulate matter down to the nanoscale. Nanometre scale or atomic scale objects have been successfully fabricated and integrated in functional devices at laboratory level using several approaches. Yet the transfer of these technologies from laboratories to manufacturing is not straightforward. In fact manufacturability implies that reproduction of these nano-objects is possible with limited variations of their structural or functional properties. The intrinsic level of variability of the current fabrication processes make questionable the possibility to further extend them into the sub-10 nm range. Consequently fabricating the small, complex, functional …