Postcard from Intel Foundry Direct Connect: The Ultimate Factory Tour

To: Those who dream of watching chips made

From: Intel Foundry Direct Connect, San Jose, Calif. | April 29, 2025

For everyone who’s not a semiconductor manufacturing technician or engineer, a tour of an Intel Foundry fab is an extremely rare privilege. It requires a special full-body bunny suit and an expert guide to keep you out of trouble, not to mention a ticket through building security – a pass that’s not for sale.

At Intel Foundry Direct Connect, attendees had the chance to enjoy what might be the most convenient and comprehensive chipmaking tour on the planet. By simply donning a lightweight VR headset, visitors took a 7-minute virtual fab tour that spanned bare wafers bathing in their first dose of photoresist to fully packaged devices undergoing automated tests.

The tour even dropped inside running machines (even technicians can’t do that) and crossed among facilities and locations without viewers leaving the comfort of their swivel chairs. Chips in cameras recorded the footage; chips in computers rendered the final immersive video; and chips in headsets delivered the sights in stereo vision – of chips being made. It’s a very meta circle of silicon life.

P.S. Intel Foundry Gathers Customers and Partners, Outlines Priorities | Intel Foundry Direct Connect 2025 (Press Kit)