IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2007 - 23

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of her freshman research with MIT's
Hank Smith. "The lab was unlike book
learning. I enjoyed and excelled at the
experimental and applied part of engineering, being in the lab and seeing the
cause and effect."
In Smith's lab, Su was bitten by the
chip bug and went on to complete her
master's and doctoral degrees at MIT.
Her doctoral work with Dimitri Antoniadis taught her another valuable lesson
about mentoring and opportunities. Getting a doctorate isn't about job training,
says Su. "It's about gaining confidence in
yourself and becoming a world-class
researcher. You start in a field where you
know a whole lot more than what's written in books and papers, and you feel like
the world's expert in the area."

Sizing Up SOI Tech
Through her graduate studies, Su
became an expert in silicon-on-insulator,
or SOI, technology-"a technique that,
at that time, was very experimental," Su
says. Layering an insulator between the
transistor and the silicon reduces the
energy absorbed and makes a stronger
signal between a microchip's transistors,
improving performance by more than
30%, according to Su. Boosting the
chip's signal using essentially the same
density of transistors extended Moore's
Law. "As you make these devices smaller
and smaller, it's hard to make them go
faster," she says, and the SOI technique
allowed for more possibilities.
In 1994, leaving MIT as a world-class
SOI researcher, and a woman, was even
more unique. Coming from an undergraduate class that was one-third female,
the lack of women engineering grads was
noticeable, Su says. "There's no question
that there's fewer women than men. The
only thing that's important is that you
feel like you're treated the same," says Su,
adding that her mentors like Antoniadis
and Smith treated her equally despite her
gender. As a grad student, she adds, "You
get the same treatment good and bad and
the same opportunities, good and bad."

Page 23

Though Su had a short stint working
Business acumen and next-gen
with semiconductors at Texas InstruThough getting products to people interments, Inc., the East Coast called her
ested Su, she says she knew the business
home to New York and IBM. At first, IBM
aspect was as important. By luck, Su says,
didn't seem like quite the right fit, Su says.
she was given the opportunity to work
"IBM was such a large company, I was
with Lou Gerstner, IBM's then chairman
wondering how I could make a difference,"
and CEO. Her nine-month assignment
she says. "After considering it for
with IBM's top dog allowed Gera while, I decided I was
stner to learn more about
going to get over it." This
the technology's leading
Su helped
approach was the same
edge. In return, Gerstbroker the
Su took to tackle
ner gave Su an "eyemarriage between
IBM's gender divide
opening" view of
IBM, Sony, and Toshiba "how my little chip
as well. "When I
came to IBM, I was
land fit into the
to produce a proposal
the only woman engibigger
IBM world,"
for the nextneer in a room of 20
she says. "Now the
generation gaming
men who were much
300,000-person commachines.
more senior and experipany looked a lot more
enced," Su says. "It was
manageable to me."
intimidating." To "get over it," she
Motivated by the synergy
put her nose to the grindstone and began
between Big Blue's business and her tech
churning out ideas of which the engineersavvy, Su formed IBM's emerging products
ing veterans hadn't thought. "I wasn't just
group. "It was like running a start-up withthis young whipper-snapper," says Su. "I
in a big company," says Su. "They wanted
was proving that I could contribute."
new ideas for how to grow our semiconSu's initial project was getting the first
ductor products." Su's new idea was getcopper microprocessor chip into producting IBM into gaming. "The way the games
tion. Until the late 1990s, engineers used
were getting more and more sophisticated,
aluminum semiconductors, but the
you could tell that the processing power
industry goal was switching to quicker
that you needed in games was faster than
copper connections. Su put her knowlwhat you found in computers at the time."
edge and her team-building skills to the
Su helped broker the marriage
test. "It was new for me, seeing things in a
between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba to proreal industrial environment; the scale was
duce a proposal for the next-generation
completely different," she says. Coming
gaming machines. The group's microfrom the grad school world "you're used
processor design came from a "clean
to five or six people and now you're in a
sheet of paper," says Su. "Not many times
group of 50 people."
in engineering do you have that opportuIn her five years in research and develnity-you have some kind of technical
opment, Su rose to the challenge and her
legacy that you're trying to take care of."
people skills excelled. "I got to interact a
Su broke down technical barriers and
lot with the product folks, I could see
built up a unique business model.
how the work I was doing was going to
In all of this, Su was IBM's go-to gal
end up in something that my mom would
for negotiations. Su says others may
buy," Su says, adding that at the time, her
have wondered what this lab coat
group was working on microprocessors
researcher was doing in a business suit.
for Apple computers. "You could just go
"Why would they let her do that? She
to the store and buy one of those. You felt
doesn't know anything about those
a real sense of connection between the
things." Opportunities like that, Su says,
product and the people."
have been integral to her success. "What

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