The last quote talks about the smallest feature size in an integrated circuit as a function of the wavelength of light used. Wavelength here approximately means "color". (It's more complicated than that, but let's say keep at that for this discussion.) For example, light with wavelengths 500 to 570 nm count as green light and 450 to 500 nm counts as blue light. Light beyond that is what you call ultraviolet.
The wavelength matters because of how relativity stipulates that light is both a particle and a wave. In semiconductor manufacturing, you create the patterns used for the transistors and conductors inside the chip by projecting light onto the die. But when you're trying to make design features that are close to the wavelength of light being used in the process, you get interference effects and cancellation of two light waves. Recall the double slit experiment from physics class in school for example. (*)
And you can't really print features that are smaller than half the wavelength of the light being used. For example, you couldn't use visible light (hundreds of nanometers long) to produce a transistor that's 30 nm big. So as the semiconductor business is racing for smaller transistor sizes, they're also using light with smaller and smaller wavelengths to avoid the interference effects. (Well, you can actually do it using some clever tricks, but in principle, smaller semiconductor feature sizes = smaller light wavelengths are needed.)
This article, and quote, is not about semiconductor manufacturing, however, but communication between chips, or between different parts of a chip, using light. But similar rules apply. Say that instead of using electricity to transfer a signal, you use a beam of light. If you're trying to use say a 565 nm wavelength green light beam to transfer data, (say using an LED on a chip) and everything in the circuit is in the 10 nm order of magnitude, you're going to have a problem. I can't really explain what would happen, but I guess the light would pretty much cancel out itself before it had a chance to move. So, to transfer information of such short distances, you need an LED or other electronic light source which is very small, and can generate UV light with a much smaller wavelength than is currently possible.
When he's talking about an optical table, he's talking about one of these things, used to split and guide a laser beam, and the prospect of producing something equivalent on the nanoscale. But again, this is only meaningful if you can produce light with a small enough wavelength.
So no, I don't think he was misquoted.
(*) I think these videos will explain the effect decently using waves in water as examples.
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