The life of a chip: a new main story that follows one chip from the R&D line to someone's hands

For its first ten days, fab24hr was one day inside a wafer fab: the call at 02:47, the etch tool that went down, one shift handing over to the next. But between a chip's design and the person who ends up using it, the fab is only the middle of the journey. This update connects the two ends.

After you clock in, pick how to play

Before, pressing "Clock in" dropped you straight into a shift chosen by the time you opened the site. Now there is one more step, choosing a mode:

• The life of a chip (beta): the new main story. A prologue and 12 chapters, about ten minutes each. Play in several sittings, or start at any chapter.
• A day in the fab: pick a role and work one shift. Everything that was in the game before is here; a shift takes about five to fifteen minutes.

The life of a chip: one chip, handed along

The hero of the main story is not a person but a chip: the first chip a small hearing-aid company has designed on its own, project name "Glowmere". The company, the chip and everyone in it are fictional.

Act	Chapters	You are
Act one: the R&D line	1–4	R&D integration engineer, R&D process engineer
Act two: the production fab	5–8	Process engineer (four shifts of one day)
Act three: a test-and-assembly house	9–11	Test engineer, assembly process engineer, customer liaison
Finale: into someone's hands	12	Mr. Shen

Each chapter is still one person's day, but what lands on your desk is what the person in the chapter before handed over: on the R&D line, how to split the first 12 wafers of a new product; in the production fab, the night a hot lot gets stuck inside an etch tool; at the test-and-assembly house, the bin Pareto chart, the wire bonder's pull test, and whether to run an early-life failure sample the night before shipping. Whoever skipped a step or asked one more question earlier, the people later on feel it, and it all ends in one of three endings.

The game never tells you which choice is "right". Every decision has a reason at the time and a cost you only see later. That is the fab we want people to see: nobody is careless; everyone is just working with different information.

If you'd like to know first what a chip goes through on its way to you, read The life of a chip: tape-out, pilot run, mass production, wafer test, packaging, final test and shipping, each in plain English, and each with a link that starts that chapter.

A day in the fab: ten roles

A day in the fab now has ten roles. Tap a name in the row under "Start" to switch roles.

• The production fab: process engineer, Manufacturing, equipment engineer, litho engineer, and the new Facilities engineer. Four shifts each: late night, morning, afternoon and evening.
• The R&D line: R&D integration engineer and R&D process engineer, while a chip is still in its pilot run.
• The test-and-assembly house (new): test engineer, assembly process engineer and customer liaison. One shift each, the same as chapters 9–11 of the main story, and you can pick them at any time of day.

The new Facilities engineer looks after the fab's back of house: the subfab under the cleanroom, the gases, the chemicals and the ultrapure water. The four shifts go from the night watch in the control room, through changing a specialty gas cylinder and the hookup of a newly delivered tool, to a small reading in a gas cabinet. It was one of the roles people asked for most in their wishes.

Smaller changes

• The process engineer's late-night, morning and afternoon shifts each have one "skip a step" choice: it saves time now and someone thanks you, but it comes back to find you later. Players who fix it earn a title.
• On phones, the red button at the bottom right always takes you to the next step; walking to the right place, or tapping the person you're looking for, starts that part too.
• A small bug icon at the top of the game screen: if something goes wrong, tap it to tell the author, then keep playing.
• The engine behind the game is now open source: tap "Open-source engine" at the bottom of the home screen and use it to make your own game about a day in someone's job.

This is a beta

The life of a chip is still in beta: the wording, the pacing and the conditions for each ending will keep changing. If you get stuck, read something that doesn't make sense, or spot something that isn't how real fabs work, tap the bug icon at the top of the screen or use Wishes and problem reports. Every message is read.