AMD CEO Lisa Su First Woman to Receive the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal for Semiconductor Excellence

[Lightwreather]

I hope this doesn't end up like the previous post I made on Jensen Huang. Also, to mods: sorry, but this article was pretty short, so, yea/

Summary

Just a month after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang received the Robert N. Noyce Award from SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association), AMD CEO Lisa Su has become the first woman to receive a similarly named award from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

Quotes

Quote

Robert N. Noyce medal is just one of the many awards the IEEE honors people in the semiconductor industry.

Lisa Su received her IEEE award for “Leadership in groundbreaking semiconductor products and successful business strategies that contributed to the strength of the microelectronics industry”. She has become the first woman to receive this award from the organization sponsored by Intel since 2000.

Here’s how Dr. Su, an IEEE fellow, responded to the award:

Quote

 

To be honest, I would have never imagined that I would receive the Noyce award. It’s an honor of a lifetime. To have that recognition from my peers in the technical community is a humbling experience. But I love what I do and being able to contribute to the semiconductor industry.

— Dr. Lisa Su

 

 

 

My thoughts

Well, this must be nice for Dr. Lisa Su, especially being the first woman to win this award. It should be noted that htis isn't the same award awarded to Mr. Jensen Huang last month or so. I would aslo like to quote something Dr. Su said:

Quote

It took more than leadership skills to get to the top, she says.

"It's a little bit of you have to be good [at what you do], but you also have to be lucky and be in the right place at the right time," she says. "I was fortunate in that I had a lot of opportunities throughout my career."

Motivating employees is part of her job, she says.

"One of the things I believe is that great leaders can actually have their teams do 120 percent more than what they thought was possible," she says. "What we try to do is to really inspire phenomenal and exceptional results."

now, this is something that I really appreciate and like in Dr. Su. She actually does acknowledge that her team is a major part of her success (or maybe I'm just misreading this and that whole point is moot) But anyway, Congrats to Dr. Lisa Su.

Sources

Videocardz.com

TechPowerUp

IEEE

[porina]

13 minutes ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

Just a month after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang received the Robert N. Noyce Award from SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association), AMD CEO Lisa Su has become the first woman to receive a similarly named award from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

I had to look it up as I thought Su already had this award, but it turned out it was the one from SIA which she got last year.

https://www.semiconductors.org/amd-ceo-dr-lisa-su-to-receive-semiconductor-industrys-top-honor/

 

Also makes me wonder, just how many awards has Intel sponsored in this area? I guess it isn't totally unexpected given Intel's long history in the industry.

[Spotty]

Just now, porina said:

I had to look it up as I thought Su already had this award, but it turned out it was the one from SIA which she got last year.

https://www.semiconductors.org/amd-ceo-dr-lisa-su-to-receive-semiconductor-industrys-top-honor/

Ah, thanks. I was also confused by this and thought Dr Su had already won this award. I guess she's cleaning up with the industry awards then.

[Dracarris]

Well deserved. What she accomplished is truly remarkable and IMHO she's a really good role model for both male and female engineers. She managed to lead a company out of deep woods to success while still staying connected to the actual technical challenges and design process. And yes, being humble and acknowledging the contributions of her team makes her even more likeable.

[CommanderAlex]

21 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Well deserved. What she accomplished is truly remarkable and IMHO she's a really good role model for both male and female engineers. She managed to lead a company out of deep woods to success while still staying connected to the actual technical challenges and design process. And yes, being humble and acknowledging the contributions of her team makes her even more likeable.

Same sentiments exactly. 

 

Now I just wish they could fine tune their software and firmware better. Literally, my VGA LED will stay lit on my X570 motherboard if I don't have the monitor turned on before POST. Never had that "glitch" with Intel systems. Or have random system crashes and VGA light goes on and won't POST until a full power down with the PSU switch turned off and holding the power button in. 

[CTR640]

Indeed well deserved as all the other engineers worked too on it. While it's great, it's also sad she's the first woman to receive such award.

Is such industry really sexistic?

[Dracarris]

31 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

Is such industry really sexistic?

Not at all. Women are highly welcome. But rarely choose to pursue EE majors on such levels and even less so with a microelectronics specialization;the field is perceived highly nerdy. And it is a pain to enter and understand how industry and tools tick and work (looking at you, Cadence).

 

I work in a microelectronics research group and after several years of highly women-targeted advertising we finally have around 5 (out of ~100) female PhD students. Before that there were decades of 100% men. Matters are a bit better outside of Europe (Asia and US, where Dr. Su did her PhD) but the basic problem remains the same.

[CTR640]

2 hours ago, Dracarris said:

Not at all. Women are highly welcome. But rarely choose to pursue EE majors on such levels and even less so with a microelectronics specialization;the field is perceived highly nerdy. And it is a pain to enter and understand how industry and tools tick and work (looking at you, Cadence).

 

I work in a microelectronics research group and after several years of highly women-targeted advertising we finally have around 5 (out of ~100) female PhD students. Before that there were decades of 100% men. Matters are a bit better outside of Europe (Asia and US, where Dr. Su did her PhD) but the basic problem remains the same.

Yeah, I already thought it's indeed perceived highly nerdy. I don't understand what's so nerdy is about that.

[PocketNerd]

3 hours ago, Dracarris said:

Not at all. Women are highly welcome. But rarely choose to pursue EE majors on such levels and even less so with a microelectronics specialization;the field is perceived highly nerdy. And it is a pain to enter and understand how industry and tools tick and work (looking at you, Cadence).

 

I work in a microelectronics research group and after several years of highly women-targeted advertising we finally have around 5 (out of ~100) female PhD students. Before that there were decades of 100% men. Matters are a bit better outside of Europe (Asia and US, where Dr. Su did her PhD) but the basic problem remains the same.

Pay close attention to that one phrase. Of the many things Women have been accused of in a sexist society (and still do, see fandom as a great example), not being "nerdy" enough is definitely one of them.

 

Sometimes you have to think a bit more critically about the excuses to see what the real problem is.

[Dracarris]

1 hour ago, PocketNerd said:

Pay close attention to that one phrase. Of the many things Women have been accused of in a sexist society (and still do, see fandom as a great example), not being "nerdy" enough is definitely one of them.

 

Sometimes you have to think a bit more critically about the excuses to see what the real problem is.

Nobody accuses the women of not being nerdy enough, that is the exact opposite of the true issue. They, and more generally, society, perceive such majors and specializations as too nerdy for them to choose. In the end it boils down to the old "boys play with trains and girls with puppets" BS that is stuck in our heads/society and especially in the heads of the women themselves, heavily influencing their choices.

 

In academia we heavily work against that misconception by actively visiting high schools and advertising engineering programs as a perfect fit for girls. There are even special events/days on campus for girls only, the engineering student association has a women subgroup which regularly meets with (the few) female professors, which in turn officially get preferred during hiring over "equally qualifying male applicants", the list goes on..

 

That being said the original discussion was about whether women in those fields don't receive awards due to the people handing them out being sexists and preferring men. To which I replied that there are simply not enough women in the field to which you could give those awards. Those that enter the field are actually heavily encouraged, supported and put on spotlight, IMHO rightfully so (everybody being happy that this field finally moves away from being one huge salami party). If anything that makes it easier for those who enter to get such awards.

 

Seeing Dr. Su leading one of the largest, most successful and innovative chip makers after turning the whole company upside down based on technical knowledge makes me all the more happy, given these circumstances.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Dracarris said:

Nobody accuses the women of not being nerdy enough, that is the exact opposite of the true issue. They, and more generally, society, perceive such majors and specializations as too nerdy for them to choose.

 

The two problems (women are gatekept for not being "nerdy enough"/women perceive the field as "too nerdy") are not mutually exclusive. 

[BuckGup]

On 9/28/2021 at 6:23 AM, CTR640 said:

Indeed well deserved as all the other engineers worked too on it. While it's great, it's also sad she's the first woman to receive such award.

Is such industry really sexistic?

Overall it's not sexist but the unicorn startup techbros can be extremely sexist and carry fratbro mentality into the workplace. 

[Quackers101]

um bro, what?

Seems like it was removed*

Edited December 9, 2021 by Quackers101

[ravenshrike]

On 9/28/2021 at 11:47 AM, Dracarris said:

In the end it boils down to the old "boys play with trains and girls with puppets" BS

Not BS at all. Although to be technically correct about it, it is boys are mostly uninterested in dolls and much more interested in mechanicals in aggregate whereas girls show little preference in aggregate. This applies not only in humans but in multiple other primate species as well.

[tikker]

Well deserved.

 

Now for my ignorant question: what is the difference between the "award" version by the SIA and the "medal" version by the IEEE? It seems a bit weird for two entities to give out the same award.

[Lightwreather]

Just one question: Why resurrect a 2 month old thread?

[RejZoR]

On 9/28/2021 at 12:22 PM, Dracarris said:

Well deserved. What she accomplished is truly remarkable and IMHO she's a really good role model for both male and female engineers. She managed to lead a company out of deep woods to success while still staying connected to the actual technical challenges and design process. And yes, being humble and acknowledging the contributions of her team makes her even more likeable.

We do have to acknowledge she's not single handledly responsible for it even though we kinda credit her for it. Charisma, presence on stage and certain key decisions probably, but we have to acknowledge that AMD has pretty capable software and hardware engineering at the moment. And their marketing works pretty well with engineering most of the time so they chug out enough of unique stuff and make buzz around it to stay relevant (FSR for example was pretty big and they know how to rather subtly poke at competition, like showcasing FSR on GTX 1060). They are doing quite alright.