Molecular manufacturing (MM) is still in an early stage of development. Despite some lab demos of relevant capabilities, it's not even known yet whether the first useful system will be based on polymers formed in water or crystalline solids formed in vacuum. So can we say for sure whether any nanoscale technology is irrelevant to the development of MM?
We can at least say that some technologies are a lot less likely to be relevant than others. The goal and method of MM is atomically precise fabrication of molecular structures under direct mechanical computer control. Many nanoscale technologies have nothing to do with this and will not help to achieve it. That's not to say they're not useful or interesting; just that they're not related to this branch of nanotechnology.
Many manufacturing technologies are not atomically precise and don't seem likely to be made so. For example, bulk processes for producing nanoparticles can produce particles that are the right size within a fraction of a nanometer--but that is hundreds of atoms. Lithography may become atomically precise--in three decades or so.
Here are some questions to ask:
Blueprint delivery: How much information can be delivered to the nanoscale and incorporated in the product? (How many parameters can be changed, and how rapidly?)
Is the technique programmable--can you change parameters and get a predictable result?
Does the technology take advantage of the inherent precision of covalent bonds and molecular structures so as to produce precisely identical products?
Does the research help to develop molecular or at least nanoscale mechanics?
If manufacturing, is the technique scaleable to produce large amounts of product? If sensing, can it produce high bandwidth of information?
How small can the tools be miniaturized? To the nanoscale, or at least to micron-scale?
Does it promote the goal of tools that can contribute to the manufacture of duplicate tools?
The vast majority of research funded under the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) does not score very high by these criteria. Again, it may be very useful for curing diseases, building faster computers, and so on. I am not trying to argue that any of it is not worth doing. But most of it is interesting for other reasons than its connection to molecular manufacturing. The NNI's research, with very few exceptions, is simply not targeted at that goal.