An audio tour of the birthplace of your technology

Every electronic device you’ve ever loved began its life as a semiconductor wafer, a disc of silicon, upon which are sketched the tiny patterns that make microchips work.

Chips are born in rather bizarre maternity wards: giant, multi-billion dollar so-called “cleanrooms,” where humans and robots work side by side.

These cleanrooms have a culture all their own, starting with the creepy white suits that workers wear so they won’t contaminate the product.

Take a tour with Marketplace’s Mark Garrison as he zipped himself into a bunny suit to acquire rare access inside one of the world’s newest semiconductor cleanrooms, the GlobalFoundries facility in upstate New York.