Fab 24 scenes play like a science fiction film

Wafer plant: Three big wafer fabrication plants dominate the skyline at Intel's sprawling 150-acre technology campus in Leixlip.

The plants are stuffed full of sophisticated computer equipment and technology capable of etching minute designs on silicon wafers, each of which contains hundreds of microprocessors.

Of the three existing fabrication plants, Fab 24 is the jewel in Intel Ireland's crown.

The $2 billion facility is the first outside the US to house 300-millimetre silicon wafers rather than standard 200-millimetre wafers. By increasing the size of the wafer, Intel can cram many more chips onto a single piece of silicon.

Men and women in bright orange and white suits tend the rows of flashing computers in the Fab 24 clean rooms, directing huge robots to transfer the wafers around the plant. Super sterile conditions are required at all times in the rooms, as a bead of sweat or hair could destroy a batch of wafers, costing millions of euro of damage in an instant.

On a recent visit to the Fab 24 clean rooms, Intel executives pointed out two-and-a-half miles of automated tracks hanging from the roof.

The CD-shaped silicon wafers whirl around the facility at huge speeds, like a scene from a science fiction film.

Mr Josh Walden, the Intel executive managing Fab 24, describes the project as the largest single construction project in Ireland.

More than 1,000 construction staff worked on the facility, which contains rows of identical grey cubicles, each containing a desk, a computer and little else.

Intel follows a standard known as "copy exactly", this means that all its facilities across the world are built to the exact same specifications.

Fab 24 will be formally launched next month by Intel's chief executive, Mr Craig Barrett.

But in the hyper-competitive semiconductor industry, progress is often rapid. Intel will build an entirely new facility, Fab 24.2 adjacent to its new Fab 24 plant.

The skyline is about to become a little more cluttered in Leixlip.