In a room the size of six football pitches, a dim yellow light shines on figures dressed in white who sit at computer desks examining numbers and figures that emerge from machines worth millions of dollars.
Above them zoom past little machines carrying precious cargo that makes several hundred stops around the fabrication plant, going through the various stages until the silicon wafers become the chips that are used in electronic devices.
This is the clean-room of the GlobalFoundries silicon chip factory at Sarasota Springs in upstate New York. The room is 10,000 times cleaner than a surgery table with an atmosphere that is just as pure.
A cigarette break outside warrants a two-hour ban from entering the clean-room.
The entry process is a tedious one. There are strict procedures in place, upheld to ensure the cleanliness of the environment.
Shoes are covered with a sock, hair has to be covered and men with beards have to wear a beard cover. Anyone entering a clean-room has to wear two gloves. A full white body suit that covers the head must be worn at all times along with a face mask, clunky boots and glasses.
All that is visible are the eyes (through the glasses).
Taking off any one of these items in the clean-room without good reason can result in disciplinary action, and with cameras at every corner, there is no evading the authorities.
Communicating becomes especially difficult once inside the clean-room, as the noise of the machines drowns out conversations. It may not be the most social of work environments, but employees at fabrication plants like that of GlobalFoundries in New York are at the forefront of the latest technology, helping to create the chips that are likely to shape our future.
