The term nanotechnology
The term "nanotechnology" is only referring to a size range and nothing more thus it can encompass a very wide range of technologies. The corresponding word "macrotechnology" is not in wide usage exactly because referring to size alone can be much to general and unspecific to be of use. In contrast to the term "macrotechnology" the term "nanotechnology" though historically lead to problematic political tensions.
With the growing number of very different technologies (and myths) gathering under the umbrella of "nanotechnology" grossly incorrect cross-associations between these technologies started to emerge in media and public perception. This caused problems. The discontent at the mainstream side grew so high that "nanotechnology" at some point was actively redefined such that controlled manipulation single atoms (core of APM) where actively excluded from "nanotechnology" (atoms are a bit smaller than a nanometer).
To make misassociations of the new "conventional nanotechnology" with the technology this wiki covers less likely the new term atomically precise manufacturing (APM) was introduced to replace older terms that carry the term "nanotechnology" in their name. Such as the term "molecular nanotechnology".
There are huge differences between APM and the new narrowed down APM excluding "nanotechnology". Here's just one: A big part of work in "nanotechnology" is done on researching interesting things that are on the verge of falling apart. Atomically precise manufacturing (APM) is mostly focused on the most stable structures which is pretty much the opposite.
Some sub-concepts of APM (e.g. nanobots) are not exactly wrongly associated with APM but are still overproportionally over-represented in current mainstream media partly because they carry the "nano-" prefix. (See: The usual suspects)
