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Lisa T. Su
Semiconductor design, silicon-on-insulator design
Lisa Su Chinese is an American business executive and electrical engineer, who is the president, chief executive officer and chair of . Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ). Early in her career, Su worked at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semiconductor in engineering and management positions. She is known for her work developing silicon-on-insulator semiconductor manufacturing technologies and more efficient semiconductor chips during her time as vice president of IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center.
Su was appointed president and CEO of AMD in October 2014, after joining the company in 2012 and holding roles such as senior vice president of AMD's global business units and chief operating officer. She currently serves on the boards of Cisco Systems, Global Semiconductor Alliance and the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association, and is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Recognized with a number of awards and accolades, she was named Executive of the Year by EE Times in 2014 and one of the World's Greatest Leaders in 2017 by Fortune. She became the first woman to receive the IEEE Robert Noyce Medal in 2021.
became senior vice president and general manager at AMD in January 2012, overseeing the company's global business units and the "end-to-end business execution" of AMD's products.Over the next two years she "played a prominent role" in pushing the company to diversify beyond the PC market, including working with Microsoft and Sony to place AMD chips in Xbox One and PS4 game consoles.
On 8 October 2014, AMD announced Su's appointment to president and CEO, replacing Rory Read. Su stated that her plan for the company involved focusing on making the "right technology investments", streamlining the product line, and continuing to diversify, also asserting that she wanted to "simplify" the company and accelerate the development of new technology. A number of analysts praised the appointment due to Su's credentials, noting AMD was seeking growth in product areas where Su had "extensive experience".
Su joined AMD in 2012, about 10 percent of sales came from non-PC products. By February 2015, roughly 40 percent of AMD's sales came from non-PC markets, such as video game consoles and embedded devices. In May 2015, Su and other AMD executives presented a long-term strategy for the company to focus on developing high-performance computing and graphics technologies for three growth areas: gaming, datacenter, and "immersive platforms" markets.
In January 2016, Su announced that AMD was working on new FinFET-based chips to create a new line of microprocessors, products, accelerated processing units (APUs), graphics chips, and semi-custom chip designs for unreleased video game consoles. AMD's share value spiked in July 2016, when AMD reported strong revenue growth. Fortune attributed the "impressive" statistic to Su, stating she "continues to execute on her comeback plan ... key gains in graphics and video gaming console chips have boosted results as well as a savvy deal to license server chip designs in China".
Early Life
Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su was born in 7 November of 1969 in Tainan, Taiwan. She was born in a Taiwanese Hokkien speaking family. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 3 with her parents Su Chun-hwai and Sandy Lo Both she and her brother were encouraged to study math and science as children. When she was seven, her father – a retired statistician – began quizzing her on multiplication tables. Her mother, an accountant who later became an entrepreneur, introduced her to business concepts. At a young age, Su aspired to be an engineer, explaining "I just had a great curiosity about how things worked". When she was 10, she began taking apart and then fixing her brother's remote control cars, and she owned her first computer in junior high school, an Apple II. She attended the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, graduating in 1986.
Su began attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the fall of 1986, intending to major in either electrical engineering or computer science. She settled on electrical engineering, recollecting that it seemed like the most difficult major. During her freshman year she worked as an undergrad research assistant "manufacturing test silicon wafers for graduate students" through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). The project, as well as her summer jobs at Analog Devices, fueled her interest in semiconductors. She remained focused on the topic for the remainder of her education, spending much of her time in labs designing and adjusting products. After earning her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, she obtained her master's degree from MIT in 1991. From 1990 to 1994 she studied for her PhD under MIT advisor Dimitri Antoniadis. MIT Technology Review reports that as a doctoral candidate, Su was "one of the first researchers to look into silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, a then unproven technique for increasing transistors' efficiency by building them atop layers of an insulating material", She graduated with her PhD in electrical engineeringfrom MIT in 1994. Her PhD thesis was titled Extreme-submicrometer silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs.
Education
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, MS, PhD) Electrical Engineering -
Career
- Advanced Micro Devices - CEO
- Advanced Micro Devices - Chairman
- Advanced Micro Devices - President
Recognition
Lisa Su has been recognized with a number of awards throughout her career. In 2002 she was selected as one of the "Top 100 Young Innovators" by MIT Technology Review, and the following year the YWCA gave her an award for outstanding achievement in business. In 2009, Su was named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), having published more than 40 technical articles. Su was named "2014 Executive of the Year" at the EE Times and EDN 2014 ACE Awards.
In 2015, SFGate nominated her for their inaugural Visionary of the Year award, which "salutes leaders who strive to make the world a better place and drive social and economic change by employing new, innovative business models and practices"
In 2016, she was named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Technology" by the National Diversity Council and "Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business" with the Pinnacle Award by the Asia American Business Development Center.
In 2017, Su was named "People to Watch" by HPCWire, "Top Ranked Semiconductor CEO", by Institutional Investor Magazine and "World's Greatest Leaders" by Fortune. Su was again named one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Technology" by the National Diversity Council.
In 2018, Su received the UPWARD "Women of the Year Award", "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Greater Austin Asian Chamber, elected to the National Academy of Engineering, Fortune's #6 "Businessperson of the Year", Global Semiconductor Alliance "Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award", and Forbes' America's Top 50 Women In Tech. She was also appointed as Board of Directors Chair of the Global Semiconductor Alliance.
In 2019, Su was named one of “The World’s Best CEO of 2019” by Barron's, Fortune's #44 "Most Powerful Women in Business",Harvard Business Review's #26 "The Best-Performing CEOs in the World", and Bloomberg Businessweek "The Bloomberg 50".
Su was the highest-paid CEO for 2019 of any company on the S&P 500 index of the 500 largest publicly-traded U.S. companies. The annual review, published by A.P. and Equilar since 2011, reported that Su received $58.5 million in 2019. The figure is mainly due to a one-off stock reward.
She was the 2020 recipient of the Semiconductor Industry Association's Robert N. Noyce Award. Also in 2020, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the 2020 Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner. She was the recipient of the Spirit of Silicon Valley Lifetime Achievement Award from the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. She was also ranked as #2 on the Fortune Business Person of The Year.
In 2021 Su was named as a Member of the U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame. Su was subsequently awarded the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal, becoming the first woman to receive this prize, and named as #49 on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women, credited for the 25-fold increase to AMD's stock since she became CEO in 2014. In 2022 Su was awarded the International Peace Honors Honoree "for her achievements in revolutionizing high performance computing, the donation of supercomputing power for infectious disease research, and inspiring people from all backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM".
In 2022, MIT named its new building 12, dedicated for nanotechnology research, under her name