As noted by Richard Feynman in his famous talk in 1959, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," there are many potential applications of machines at smaller and smaller sizes; by building and controlling devices at smaller scales, all technology benefits. The expected benefits include greater efficiencies and reduced size, decreased power consumption and lower costs of production in electromechanical systems.[2]

In 1960, Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs fabricated the first MOSFET with a gate oxide thickness of 100 nm.[3