It took several minutes to dress in the white protective overalls.
It was a step-by-step process that involved moving between various sections of the large changing area, while being handed gloves, hard hats, foot coverings and goggles.
Eventually it was time to enter Fab 34, Intel’s new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at its campus in Leixlip, Co Kildare.
It was September 2023 and members of the media were being given a tour of the plant to mark its official opening.
The vast, sterile rooms were lined with racks of equipment and computers.
White-suited workers operated robotic arms behind glass screens, while overhead automated consoles moved quickly along tracks in the ceilings.
It was the first time I had ever stood in a building that cost €17 billion to develop.
Also at the launch event that day, were the then Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
Both are now gone from those roles, but Fab 34 remains and it could be the very thing that spares Leixlip from the worst of the job cuts announced last night.
The facility has the capacity to produce the cutting-edge chips that Intel needs to revive its fortunes.
The value of the plant came to the fore in June last year, when Intel announced the sale of a 49% stake in a joint venture linked to the Fab 34 facility for €10 billion.
The deal with Apollo Global Management allowed the company to access much needed funding while also retaining control of the site and its assets.
In a memo to employees last night, the Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company needs to eliminate management layers, get back to its roots, empower engineers and remove organisational complexity.
“There is no way around the fact that these critical changes will reduce the size of our workforce,” he said.
He added that the process would begin in this quarter and move as quickly as possible over the next several months.
Intel said it may be July, at the time of its next quarterly results, when it gives a finalised headcount reduction number.
The Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said it is likely to be several weeks before details are available on the impact of the cost reduction measures.
He added that it is positive that the company stated that it will continue to focus investment on its core business, the manufacturing of semiconductor products.
“This is the primary activity in Ireland,” Mr Burke said.
If reporting by Bloomberg is correct, and the job cut number ends up being 20% of the global workforce, it is difficult to see how Leixlip could escape completely unscathed given the scale of Intel’s operation here.
Ireland has been not been immune from previous rounds of cuts in recent years.
In October 2022, the company announced a major cost-cutting plan which included thousands of redundancies globally.
At its Irish operation, it led to 130 layoffs, pay cuts for senior managers and offers of voluntary unpaid leave to a large portion of the staff.
In August 2024, Intel said it planned to cut more than 15% of its global workforce which led to a review of business units at its Irish operation and the opening of voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes.
Read more: ‘Anxious time’ for Irish Intel staff as global job cuts announced
A month later, the company announced that it would close a building in Shannon that housed its Research and Development unit.
Around 250 people were based at the facility, but many were working remotely for much or all of the time.
Throughout the restructuring of recent years, the overall Irish headcount at Intel has remained at 4,900. A sign that while the company was laying off workers in some divisions, it was also hiring new staff in other parts of the operation.
Over the next few weeks, we will find out if that massive €17 billion investment in Leixlip will be enough to keep those headcount figures intact.
