Running Toward the Hardest Problems: A Self-Driven CEO in the World of Silicon Chips

In 1986, Lisa Su, then a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), took her first research position. Research opportunities for undergraduates are hard to come by, but Su, an electrical engineering major, found a paying position in a semiconductor lab. There, the team was experimenting on advanced techniques for Xray lithography, a process that uses X-rays to transfer patterns from a mask onto the resist coating of a silicon wafer. At work in the lab, Su spent her time moving between pieces of equipment as she prepared the baseline mask materials that the graduate students would then use to carry out their experiments. It may have been seen as grunt work to some, but not to Su, who found the idea of getting paid to be involved in any phase of the research process exciting.