Lisa Su

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Lore & Background

Lisa Su was born in November 1969 in Tainan, Taiwan, into a Taiwanese Hokkien-speaking family. She immigrated to the United States at age three with her parents Su Chun-hwai and Sandy Lo, growing up in Queens, New York City. Her father worked as a statistician for the city government; her mother was an accountant who later became an entrepreneur. Both she and her brother were encouraged to study math and science. At age ten she began taking apart and fixing her brother's remote control cars, and she owned an Apple II in junior high. She attended the Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 1986. Su entered MIT in fall 1986, majoring in electrical engineering. During her freshman year she worked as an undergraduate research assistant manufacturing test silicon wafers through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. She earned her bachelor's degree, a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1991, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1994 under advisors Dimitri A. Antoniadis and James E. Chung. Her dissertation was titled 'Extreme-submicrometer silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs.' As a doctoral candidate, she was one of the first researchers to look into silicon-on-insulator technology. After MIT, Su worked at Texas Instruments and then IBM, where she played a critical role in developing the recipe to make copper connections work with semiconductor chips, launched in 1998. She later founded and headed IBM's Emerging Products division, collaborating with Sony and Toshiba on the Cell microprocessor used in the PlayStation 3. She joined Freescale Semiconductor in June 2007 as chief technology officer and later senior vice president. In January 2012, she joined AMD as senior vice president and general manager, and was appointed president and CEO in October 2014. Under Su's leadership, AMD's market capitalization grew from roughly $3 billion to more than $700 billion, and AMD overtook Intel in market capitalization for the first time. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including being named Time magazine CEO of the year in 2014 and again in 2024, and receiving the IEEE Robert Noyce Medal in 2021 as the first woman to do so.

Reader's Guide

Lisa Su's significance lies in her transformative leadership of AMD, a major American semiconductor company, from a market capitalization of roughly $3 billion to more than $700 billion. Her technical background in silicon-on-insulator and copper interconnect technologies at IBM contributed to industry-wide advances in chip efficiency and speed. As CEO, she refocused AMD on high-performance computing, gaming, and datacenter markets, leading to the company surpassing Intel in market capitalization for the first time. Her recognition as Time CEO of the year in 2014 and 2024 and recipient of the IEEE Robert Noyce Medal in 2021 underscores her impact on the semiconductor industry. Su's career path from immigrant child to top executive also serves as a notable example in technology leadership.

Did You Know?

• Su was one of the first researchers to look into silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology as a doctoral candidate at MIT.
• She played a critical role in developing the recipe to make copper connections work with semiconductor chips at IBM, launched in 1998.
• Under Su's leadership, AMD's market capitalization grew from roughly $3 billion to more than $700 billion.
• She is the first woman ever to top the Associated Press's annual survey of CEO compensation, with her 2019 pay package valued at $58.5 million.
• Su was named Time magazine CEO of the year in both 2014 and 2024, the first woman to receive that honor.

From Tainan to the MIT Labs

Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su was born in November 1969 in Tainan, Taiwan, into a Taiwanese Hokkien-speaking family. At age three she immigrated to the United States with her parents—Su Chun-hwai, a city-government statistician, and Sandy Lo, an accountant who later became an entrepreneur—and grew up in Queens, New York City. Both parents encouraged their children to study math and science; her father began quizzing her on multiplication tables when she was seven, while her mother introduced her to business concepts. Su's mechanical curiosity surfaced young: at ten she began taking apart and then fixing her brother's remote control cars, and she owned her first computer, an Apple II, in junior high. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1986, then entered MIT that fall, intending to major in either electrical engineering or computer science. She settled on electrical engineering, recollecting that it seemed like the most difficult major. A freshman research position manufacturing test silicon wafers for graduate students through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, along with summer jobs at Analog Devices, fueled her interest in semiconductors. She earned a bachelor's degree, a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1991, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1994 under advisors Dimitri A. Antoniadis and James E. Chung. Her dissertation was titled 'Extreme-submicrometer silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs.' As a doctoral candidate, MIT Technology Review reports she was 'one of the first researchers to look into silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, a then unproven technique for increasing transistors' efficiency.'

Copper Interconnects and the Emerging Products Lab

After a brief tenure at Texas Instruments' Semiconductor Process and Device Center from 1994 to February 1995, Su joined IBM as a research staff member specializing in device physics and was appointed vice president of IBM's semiconductor research and development center. There she played a 'critical role' in developing the 'recipe' to make copper connections work with semiconductor chips instead of aluminum, 'solving the problem of preventing copper impurities from contaminating the devices during production.' The copper technology was launched in 1998, resulting in new industry standards and chips that were up to 20% faster than conventional versions. In 2000 she served a year as technical assistant for IBM CEO Lou Gerstner, then became director of emerging projects, stating 'I was basically director of myself – there was no one else in the group.' She went on to found and lead IBM's Emerging Products division, an internal startup where she hired ten employees to focus on biochips and 'low-power and broadband semiconductors.' Their first product was a microprocessor that improved battery life in phones and other handheld devices. MIT Technology Review named her a 'Top Innovator Under 35' in 2001. Through the division she also represented IBM in a collaboration with Sony and Toshiba to create next-generation chips; Ken Kutaragi charged the collaboration with 'improving the performance of game machine processors by a factor of 1,000,' and Su's team eventually came up with the idea for a nine-processor chip that later became the Cell microprocessor used in the PlayStation 3.

Rescuing and Rebuilding AMD

Su joined AMD in January 2012 as senior vice president and general manager, 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 PlayStation 4 game consoles. In October 2014 she was appointed president and CEO, replacing Rory Read. Su stated her plan involved focusing on making the 'right technology investments,' streamlining the product line, and continuing to diversify. When she joined AMD in 2012, about 10 percent of sales came from non-PC products; by February 2015, roughly 40 percent 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 focusing on high-performance computing and graphics technologies for gaming, datacenter, and 'immersive platforms' markets. Under her leadership, AMD's market capitalization grew from roughly $3 billion to more than $700 billion, and AMD overtook Intel in market capitalization for the first time. In February 2022, Su became chair of AMD after completing a reported $49 billion acquisition of FPGA and programmable logic company Xilinx.

A Trail of Firsts and Industry Honors

Su's professional achievements have been met with a remarkable string of firsts and top-tier honors. In 2014, the same year she became AMD's CEO, she was named Executive of the Year by EE Times and became the first woman ever selected as Time magazine's CEO of the Year—a distinction she repeated in 2024. Fortune recognized her as one of the World's Greatest Leaders in 2017. In 2021 she became the first woman to receive the IEEE Robert Noyce Medal. In 2024 she was elected a Fellow of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Forbes ranked her the tenth most powerful woman in the world for 2025, and Time named her among its 'Architects of AI' for its 2025 Person of the Year. She is also a member of The Business Council, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and sits on the board of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association.