DOCSLIB.ORG

SUPERCOMPUTERS Palo Alto's Lynn Conway Has Been Entrusted with Mobilizing American Computer Scientists to Build a New Generation of Machines That Can Think

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
SUPERCOMPUTERS Palo Alto's Lynn Conway Has Been Entrusted with Mobilizing American Computer Scientists to Build a New Generation of Machines That Can Think o s 5i Ia Lynn Conway stands behind her workat XeroxPalo AltoResearch Center. Alan Bell (center) and Gaetano Borriello areplaying a game called "Truckin"' which tests artificial intelligenceapplications. "Truckin"' was designed by researchers working with Conway—Mark Stefik and DannyBobrow. Creating a new generation of SUPERCOMPUTERS Palo Alto's Lynn Conway has been entrusted with mobilizing American computer scientists to build a new generation of machines that can think. She's out to explore the New Frontier of Supercomputing — before the Japanese stake territorial claims. Michael Doyle Conwaydescribesherselfas afan Research Projects Agency (DARPA). excitement about her work PA, Conwaywill scout the frontier ofsuper- Lynnof the "laid-back Palo Alto "Let's gomake it happen," Conway said in computer research and develop- computing. Othjer countries will provide lifestyle." Sitting in her well-tended in a tone reminiscent of an inspirational Conway'sment is as tangible in her writings as competition, particularly Japan, which has backyard with her Siamese cats Samantha coachbefore the big game. Conway willlead in her speech. In a lecture givenat Caltech embarkedon its own, highlypublicized ad- and Rapunzel, the 42-year-old computer a project with major defense and commer- and later published by Xerox,Conway said vanced supercomputer project, scientist talksof sailing, bike rides and hik- rial implications. that the development of computers and The DARPA computer project for which ing in FoothillsPark. Working at the Defense Department, computer networks "arereminiscent of the Conway holds primaryresponsibility is en- As of this week, however,Lynn Conway Conway directs the government's effort to pervasive effects of the telegraph and the titled "Strategic Computing and Sur- has abandonedthe laid-back life for a more developa very very powerful computer railroads, as they spread out everywhere vivability." A total of million has been frenzied existence in Washington, that can reason like a human being and during the 19th century, providing an in- earmarked for the project in 1983-84, and where she heads a new national effort to understand everydaylanguages, frastructure people could use to go on another millionis scheduled for '84-85. t- developan advanced supercomputer. After 10 years of research work at the adventures, to go exploring and to send The supercomputers and associated Conway measures her phrases carefully Xerox Palo Alto Research Conway back news of what they had found. technologies developed through DARPA and listensintently,in themanner ofsomeone will not spend much time in the lab on her "I think of personal computers and the will serve military purposes, according to accustomedtoleadingothers.But she getsen- new job. Rather, she will be a pollinator, computer communication networks as a the DARPA R&D Program Summary thusiastic when discussing her favorite con- spreading money, advice and encourage- similar sort of infrastructure ... as we ex- Description, includingaircraft carrier com- cept—pushingforward the state of theart in ment among the various industry and plore the modern frontier the frontier of mand and control, photo interpretation, computer technology. "That'sreallycool!", universityresearchers working ongrants she what we can create." — pilots' assistant and strategic targetplanning. Conway is likely to say when somethingex- will administer, As computer project manager with DAR- But Conway is more excited about the cites her or catches her fancy. — chance to explore state of the art "I like to be part of the community of technology.She also wants to developthriv- people who go for it," Conway said, ing networks of advanced researchers the repeating the phrase "go for it" several 'There are some incredible technical social and technical infrastructure—that times in the conversation and sometimes forms the basis for future exploration. The pounding her fist into her palm for em- opportunities that can be taken if we go for actual supercomputeris but one goal of the phasis. it. We don't have to form some kind of project. In an exclusive interviewwith the Weekly "Itgreatly oversimplifiesto saywe'reo\it before she leftfor Washington, Conway ex- institute; wherever the researchers are, they to produceamachine,"Conway said. "Any pressedthe same can-do attitudetoward the can participate." one machine is only onepoint in the design challenges ahead of her as computer space." researchmanager for the Defense Advanced Conway observedthat, in the traditionof Palo Alto Weekly " August 3, 1983 " Page 11 fast, $50 DC, $95 Center, ______^_ - Supercomputers Tang and Space Blankets, theresearch con- ford. Feigenbaumrefers to the MCC pro- ductedfor thegovernmenton the suDercom- posal as "an American Fifth Generation." puter will lead to diverse and unexpected 'The charter of DARPA is, in a sense, to At the Center for Integrated commercialdevelopments. explore the farthest Systems (CIS) is a consortium of 18 elec- "You'llsee a wholearray of technologies frontiers ... to have a tronics firms (including Xerox and Hewlett and knowledge"spinoff from the DARPA sense of what is possible." Packard), which put up $750,000 apieceto work, Conway predicted. Fueling these conduct research. DARPA has provided a spinoffs will be the "col- three-year, million contract to CIS. The laborative/competitive" R&D environment annual CIS research budget is about that Conway hopes to establishthrough her million—a net 13.5percent increase over the apart is thecomputer's ability toreason and million. work at DARPA. This environment com- 1983budget. Currently, major projects are to understand everyday language. Such Conway noted that almostall ofthe work bines new technologies like computer net- working on advanced cruise missiles, laser computers can be providedwith alargebase sponsoredby DARPAis actuallycontracted works, with the desire to create and the weapons and what the summarydescription of knowledge. They can make intelligent out—to industry,to universitiesand to corn- desireto be number one. reports as "a major new initiative in a new decisions, bined groups like CIS. generationofsuper speed computers." This Some so-calledexpertsystems are already Conway's old job at the Xerox Palo is Conway'sproject. in practice. The Palo Alto-based firm onway speaks of attracting a Alto Research Center (PARC), located Stanford professor Edward Feigenbaum Teknowledge, founded by Feigenbaum, B "critical mass" ofresearchers in the Inin the hills of Stanford Industrial Park, and writer Pamela McCorduck, in their developedan expert system called Drilling different "compartments of she was involved with research in informa- book The Fifth Generation, explain that Advisor. This system diagnoses problems knowledge," such as software, chip design tion processing and related technologies. computer generations aredetermined by the encountered by oil well drillers and makes and naturallanguagecapabilities.Shehopes PARC has areputation as a well-funded, computer's central technology, recommendations for correcting the prob- therewillbe enough"interface" among the highly advanced research station, where the The first generation of computers was lem. groups that their workwill feed the totalef- scientists and engineers are not necessarily based on vacuum tubes. The second genera- This is the direction toward which the fort. obligated to produce immediate, commer- tion was based on transistors, and the third DARPA "strategic computing and sur- Conway specifically wants to stimulate cially viableresults. generationon integrated circuits. vivability"project is heading! The Japanese "an open evolution of knowledge." The "DARPA is to the Department of Integrated circuits use many transistors areheadingthat waytoo. Much ofTheFifth best encouragementfor R&D advancement, Defense as PARC is to Xerox," Conway Packed ontoa singlesilicon chip. The fourth Generationdescribesa 10-year, million she says, is for competing designs to meet said. Like "the charter of DARPA generation of computers, which Feigen- Japaneseproject to developafifth genera- openly, is to explore the, farthest frontiers" in baum says will "dominate during the tion computer. Designs thatworkcan be imitatedand im- various scientific disciplines. According to 1980s," is based on Very Large Scale In- "It's not just a response to the plemented morerapidly than if theresearch the DARPA summary description, this is tegrated (VLSI) chips. Japanese," Conway said of the DARPA were conducted in isolated, secretive in- ' 'high-risk research and developmentwhere VLSI is atechniqueforcramming 100,000 computer project. More than one team of dustry think tanks. Researchers can share major improvements in militaryoperations or more integrated circuits onto a single Americans is already working on so-called ideas even though they're working in dif- could evolve." chip. Much of Conway'sreputation isbased fifth generation projects. ferent parts of the country by using tools DARPA was founded in 1958, in large on her work in VLSI design, Ten American corporations (Digital like the computer network. Computer net- part aresponse to the Soviets launchingthe The supercomputer that Conway will at- Equipment and Control Data among them) works are recent innovations, "a strong Sputnik satellite.DARPA playeda "signifi- tempt to developwillpresumably represent formed the Microelectronics and Computer tool," inConway's phrase , thatcan quicken cant part," according to the summary the fifth generation. It will be based on Technology
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Unsung Innovators: Lynn Conway and Carver Mead They Literally Wrote the Book on Chip Design
    http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9046420/Unsung_innovators_Lynn_Conway_and_Carver_Mead Unsung innovators: Lynn Conway and Carver Mead They literally wrote the book on chip design By Gina Smith December 3, 2007 12:00 PM ET Computerworld - There is an analogy Lynn Conway brings up when trying to explain what is now known as the "Mead & Conway Revolution" in chip design history. Before the Web, the Internet had been chugging along for years. But it took the World Wide Web, and its systems and standards, to help the Internet burst into our collective consciousness. "What we had took off in that modern sort of way," says Conway today. Before Lynn Conway and Carver Mead's work on chip design, the field was progressing, albeit slowly. "By the mid-1970s, digital system designers eager to create higher-performance devices were frustrated by having to use off-the-shelf large-scale-integration logic," according to Electronic Design magazine, which inducted Mead and Conway into its Hall of Fame in 2002. The situation at the time stymied designers' efforts "to make chips sufficiently compact or cost- effective to turn their very large-scale visions into timely realities." But then Conway and Mead introduced their very large-scale integration (VLSI) methods for combining tens of thousands of transistor circuits on a single chip. And after Mead and Conway's 1980 textbook Introduction to VLSI Design -- and its subsequent storm through the nation's universities -- engineers outside the big semiconductor companies could pump out bigger and better digital chip designs, and do it faster than ever. Their textbook became the bible of chip designers for decades, selling over 70,000 copies.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Computing
    History of Computing CSE P590A (UW) PP190/290-3 (UCB) CSE 290 291 (D00) Women in Computing Katherine Deibel University of Washington [email protected] 1 An Amazing Photo Philadelphia Inquirer, "Your Neighbors" article, 8/13/1957 2 Diversity Crisis in Computer Science Percentage of CS/IS Bachelor Degrees Awarded to Women National Center for Education Statistics, 2001 3 Goals of this talk ! Highlight the many accomplishments made by women in the computing field ! Learn their stories, both good and bad 4 Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace ! Translated and extended Menabrea’s article on Babbage’s Analytical Engine ! Predicted computers could be used for music and graphics ! Wrote the first algorithm— how to compute Bernoulli numbers ! Developed notions of looping and subroutines 5 Garbage In, Garbage Out The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. — Ada Lovelace, Note G 6 On her genius and insight If you are as fastidious about the acts of your friendship as you are about those of your pen, I much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your admirable & philosophic 'Note A.' Pray do not alter it… All this was impossible for you to know by intuition and the more I read your notes the more surprised I am at them and regret not having earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest metal.
    [Show full text]
  • Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110 [email protected]
    IBM-ACS: Reminiscences and Lessons Learned From a 1960’s Supercomputer Project * Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110 [email protected] Abstract. This paper contains reminiscences of my work as a young engineer at IBM- Advanced Computing Systems. I met my colleague Brian Randell during a particularly exciting time there – a time that shaped our later careers in very interesting ways. This paper reflects on those long-ago experiences and the many lessons learned back then. I’m hoping that other ACS veterans will share their memories with us too, and that together we can build ever-clearer images of those heady days. Keywords: IBM, Advanced Computing Systems, supercomputer, computer architecture, system design, project dynamics, design process design, multi-level simulation, superscalar, instruction level parallelism, multiple out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, VLSI design. 1 Introduction I was hired by IBM Research right out of graduate school, and soon joined what would become the IBM Advanced Computing Systems project just as it was forming in 1965. In these reflections, I’d like to share glimpses of that amazing project from my perspective as a young impressionable engineer at the time. It was a golden era in computer research, a time when fundamental breakthroughs were being made across a wide front. The well-distilled and highly codified results of that and subsequent work, as contained in today’s modern textbooks, give no clue as to how they came to be. Lost in those texts is all the excitement, the challenge, the confusion, the camaraderie, the chaos and the fun – the feeling of what it was really like to be there – at that frontier, at that time.
    [Show full text]
  • Nov 9, 2016: Professor Lynn Conway's
    Professor Lynn Conway Introduction: Nov 9, 2016 1 Mary Sanseverino Nov 9, 2016: Professor Lynn Conway’s Citation for the Degree Doctor of Engineering, Honoris Causa, University of Victoria. Citation prepared and read by Mary Sanseverino, Deputy Orator, and Teaching Professor Emerita, Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria. Madam Chancellor, I have the privilege of speaking about the extraordinary accomplishments of Lynn Conway: brilliant computer scientist and engineer, innovative educator, and advocate for transgender rights. She is a technological revolutionary whose discoveries opened the floodgates of creativity for countless engineers, computer scientists, and entrepreneurs. Professor Conway’s ideas are all around us today – in computers, tablets, smartphones, GPS, self-driving cars … indeed, in almost all modern technology. In 1963 Lynn Conway completed graduate work in electrical engineering and computer science at Columbia University. She was quickly recruited by IBM Research where she invented a ground- breaking technique which dramatically increased computer Professor Lynn Conway Introduction: Nov 9, 2016 2 Mary Sanseverino performance by arranging and executing instructions far more efficiently, and still, 50 years on, a standard technique in today’s computers. Sadly, IBM fired her in 1968 as she underwent gender transition. She had to rebuild her career in “stealth” with a new name and identity. Starting all over again, Lynn joined Memorex in 1969 and moved to Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre in ‘73. Silicon Valley in the 70’s: What an exhilarating time and place this must have been – technological innovations coming thick and fast – and Lynn Conway was in the heart of it all! It was becoming clear that methods of digital circuit design current at the time could not handle the complexity that new technology would demand.
    [Show full text]
  • Conway-Suchman Conversation
    Conway Suchman Conversation Conway-Suchman conversation Lynn Conway, Lucy Suchman Published on: Mar 05, 2021 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) Conway Suchman Conversation Conway-Suchman conversation Preface by Lucy Suchman, 28 February 2021 In 1980, at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), we entered into a rather extraordinary conversation. Computer architect and electrical engineer Lynn was then head of the LSI (Large-Scale Integration) Systems area at PARC, while I was a recently arrived Research Intern at PARC and PhD student in Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, in the very early stages of formulating plans for my doctoral thesis. Lynn was emerging from a period of intensive activity focused on the ‘multi-university, multi-project chip-design demonstration’ (MPC79), an initiative involving the creation of a new pedagogy and associated design and manufacturing process for the production of very large-scale integrated circuits (VLSI). At Lynn’s suggestion, we began an exchange born out of her desire to think anthropologically about what she had just experienced, and mine to deepen my understanding of her sociotechnical imaginary and practice. With Lynn’s endorsement, I recorded and transcribed our conversations, aided by an Alto computer and the text editor Bravo, both recently developed and in everyday use at PARC. The resulting text, which I printed out to share with Lynn and archived for herself in a 3-ring binder, was around 55 pages. We lost touch over the years following our respective departures from PARC until, in 2020, another PhD student, Philipp Sander, contacted Lynn to interview her.
    [Show full text]
  • Transgender: Is It Me? (PLZ HELP)
    Transgender: is it Me? (PLZ HELP) MIDORI TROJANOWSKI WRITER’S COMMENT: I wrote this paper for Dr. Wrye Sententia’s UWP 104F: Writing in the Health Professions class fall quarter of my senior year. I was very excited when we were given an opportunity to choose our own healthcare-related topic. Discrimination of any sort has always caught my attention, but I ended up writing about discrimination and the hardships of being a transgender-identifying person, especially the extent to which it can afect a person’s health. For transgender individuals, discrimination can be damaging both emotionally and physically and some doctors even refuse to treat them because of their identity. I thought it would be both fun and cultur- ally relevant to write in the format of a semi-anonymous online blog or chat room. In a society that still fnds ways to discriminate against people for who they are, I believe that this online format would be the frst place someone today would seek information about what it is to be transgender. I would especially like to thank my long-time acquaintance Levi Maxwell, a gender variant person who has worked on behalf of transgender communities and who enlightened me about what it can mean to be transgender in today’s world. INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENT: Midori’s approach in this piece of writing is courageous. In the course for which it was written (UWP 104F: Writing in the Health Professions), students typically write in styles that are more comfortably “academic.” One might wonder, how then, could Midori’s approach possibly ‘ft’? And yet, it does ft, beauti- fully.
    [Show full text]
  • The 2013 Virtual Reality Career Award
    The 2013 Virtual Reality Career Award Henry Fuchs The 2013 Virtual Reality Career Award goes to Henry Fuchs, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for his lifetime contributions to research and practice in virtual environments, telepresence, and medical applications. Since the 1970s, Henry Fuchs has made pioneer contributions to many of the technolo- gies needed to enable virtual and augmented reality: automatic construction of 3D models and scenes, fast rendering algorithms (BSP Trees), graphics hardware (Pixel-Planes), large- area tracking systems (HiBall), optical and video see-through head-mounted displays. Many of these advances were inspired by demanding applications such as augmenting visualization for surgical assistance (by merging real and virtual objects) and teleimmersion for remote medical Henry Fuchs consultation. He continues to innovate within a multi-national telepresence research center The University of North with sites at ETH Zurich, NTU Singapore, and UNC Chapel Hill. The IEEE VGTC is pleased Carolina at Chapel Hill to award Henry Fuchs the 2013 Virtual Reality Career Award. Award Recipient 2013 Biography Fuchs is the Federico Gil Distinguished Professor of These VR applications also inspired concurrent work Computer Science and Adjunct Professor of Biomedical in wide-area tracking systems, such as the inside-out optical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel tracking dissertation research of student and colleague Gary Hill. Born in 1948 in Tokaj, Hungary, he escaped with his Bishop, and (a decade later) Bishop’s student and colleague family in wake of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, emigrat- Greg Welch. The commercialized HiBall™ wide-area tracker ing to the USA in 1957.
    [Show full text]
  • AIE Volume 6 Issue 1 Cover and Front Matter
    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR ENGINEERING DESIGN, ANALYSIS AND MANUFACTURING Volume 6 Number 1 Editor Clive L. Dym ACADEMIC PRESS Harcoun Brace Jovanovich, Publishers London San Diego New York Boston Sydney Tokyo Toronto ISSN 0890-0604 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. 24 Sep 2021 at 13:07:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use. (Al EDAM) Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing EDITOR CLIVE L. DYM Department of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711, U.S.A. RESEARCH BRIEFS EDITOR BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR MANJULA WALDRON DAVID C. BROWN Department of Engineering Graphics, Department of Computer Science, The Ohio State University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Columbus, OH 43210, U.S.A. Worcester, MA 01609, USA EDITORIAL BOARD Paul R. Cohen, Department of Computer and Information John McDermott, Digital Equipment Corporation, Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, Marlborough, MA 01752, U.S.A. U.S.A. Sanjay Mittal, Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Xerox Palo Lynn Conway. College of Engineering, University of Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304, U.S.A. Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A. Kiyoshi Niwa, Advanced Research Laboratory, Hitachi Johan de Kleer, Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Xerox Palo Ltd., Tokyo 185, Japan Alto Research Center, Palo Alto. CA 94304, U.S.A. Panos Papalambros, Department of Mechanical Engineering, John R. Dixon, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, U.S.A. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A. H. Van Dyke Parunak, Industrial Technology Institute, Ann S. J. Fenves, Department of Civil Engineering, Carnegie- Arbor, MI 48106, U.S.A.
    [Show full text]
  • Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Earning her BS (62) and MSEE (63) at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, Lynn joined IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and while working on IBM's Advanced Computing Systems project made foundational contributions to computer architecture. Sadly, IBM fired her as she underwent gender transition in 1968. A gritty survivor, Lynn started her career all over again as a contract programmer in a covert new identity. Advanced rapidly, she soon becoming a computer architect at Memorex, but also began decades living in fear of being 'outed' and losing her career again. Recruited by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, Lynn invented scalable design rules for VLSI chip design, became principal author of the seminal Mead-Conway text Introduction to VLSI Systems, and in 1978, while serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of EECS at M.I.T., pioneered the teaching of these new methods. Lynn’s teachings quickly spread to over 100 universities, launching a revolution in VLSI microchip design during the 1980's. Back at PARC Lynn also invented and in 1979 massively demonstrated an internet-based e-commerce infrastructure for rapid chip prototyping, thereby spawning the MOSIS System and the "fabless-design + silicon-foundry" industrial paradigm of modern semiconductor-chip design and manufacturing. As Assistant Director for Strategic Computing at DARPA, Lynn next crafted the meta-architecture and led the planning of the Strategic Computing Initiative, the Department of Defense’s major 1980's effort to expand the technology-base for modern intelligent weapons systems.
    [Show full text]
  • IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE Fall 2012 1 Senior Administrator, Katherine Olstein Terms to 31 Dec
    FALL 2012 VOL. 4 • NO. 4 www.ieee.org/sscs-news INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMS FEATURES CARVER MEAD • LYNN CONWAY 8 Reminiscences of the VLSI Revolution How a series of failures triggered a paradigm shift in digital design. By Lynn Conway 32 A Paradigm Shift Was Happening All Around Us By Chuck House 36 Witnessing the Birth of VLSI Design By Carlo H. Séquin ABOUT THIS IMAGE: This book helped start a revolution; read 40 “Covering” all about it starting on p. 8. How we missed the inside-story of the VLSI revolution. By Ken Shepard TUTORIAL COLUMNS/ DEPARTMENTS 43 On the Other Applications of Organic Electronics on Foil 3 CONTRIBUTORS By Hagen Marien, Michel S.J. Steyaert, 4 EDITOR’S NOTE Erik van Veenendaal, and Paul L. Heremans 5 R P ESIDENt’S CORNER 6 ASSOCIATE EDITOR’S VIEW 50 PEOPLE 54 CHAPTERS 61 OS CIETY NeWS 62 I EEE NEWS 64 CONFERENCE RepORTS 71 CONFERENCE CALENDAR CVR 3 FOOTER Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2012.2214274 IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE FALL 2012 1 Senior Administrator, Katherine Olstein Terms to 31 Dec. 2014 IEEE SOLID-STATE IEEE SSCS, 445 Hoes Lane Christian Enz, Hideto Hidaka, Kofi Makinwa, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA Boris Murmann, Roland Thewes CIRCUITS MAGAZINE Tel: +1 732 981 3410 Fax: +1 732 981 3401 Region 8 Representative EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Bram Nauta Mary Y. Lanzerotti SSC ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE [email protected] Region 10 Representative President, Rakesh Kumar [email protected] Vacant Technology Connexions, Inc. TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Poway, California, USA Chairs of Standing Committees Jake Baker Vice-President, Bill Bidermann Awards—John J.
    [Show full text]
  • Reminiscences of the VLSI Revolution: How a Series of Failures Triggered a Paradigm Shift in Digital Design*
    Reminiscences of the VLSI Revolution: How a series of failures triggered a paradigm shift in digital design* By Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Lynn Conway at MIT, October 2008, the 30th anniversary of launching her VLSI design course there. Preface Innovations in science and engineering have excited me for a lifetime, as they have for many friends and colleagues. Unfortunately, our wider culture often imagines the engineering life to be one of tedium and technical drudgery, seldom witnessing the joys of such creativity. If only I could wave a wand, I've often wished, and say "YOU CAN DO IT" to inspire young folks to dedicate their lives to such adventures. But then various friends asked me to write about my own career – a tale wherein travails, setbacks, dark days and obscurity at times seemed the theme – and I wondered who’d be inspired by such a journey, so often apparently lonely, difficult and discouraging? However, after deeper contemplation and review, I realized that each setback in my story, each hardship, actually strengthened my skills, my perspectives, and my resolve. And when colleagues began reading the early drafts, they reacted similarly: "Wow, this is really something!" The story was authentic, real – maybe even surreal – and it actually happened. The child who once dreamed of "making a difference," indeed made a difference after all. And with that, I'd like to inspire YOU to imagine how you too can positively impact our world. Be assured, it won't be easy, and fame may never come your way, but the satisfaction gained from a life of creative work will be immense.
    [Show full text]
  • Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Lynn Conway Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After studying physics at MIT and earning her BS (62) and MSEE (63) at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, Lynn joined IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY. While working on IBM's Advanced Computing Systems project she made foundational contributions to computer architecture. Sadly, IBM fired Lynn as she underwent gender transition in 1968. A gritty survivor, Lynn started her career all over again as a contract programmer in a covert new identity. Advancing rapidly, she soon became a computer architect at Memorex Corporation, but also began decades of living in fear of being 'outed' and losing her career again. Recruited by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, Lynn invented scalable design rules for VLSI chip design, became principal author of the seminal Mead-Conway text Introduction to VLSI Systems, and in 1978, while serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of EECS at M.I.T., pioneered the teaching of these new methods. Lynn’s teachings quickly spread to over 100 universities, launching a revolution in VLSI microchip design during the 1980's. Back at PARC Lynn also invented and in 1979 massively demonstrated an internet-based e-commerce infrastructure for rapid chip prototyping, thereby spawning the MOSIS System and the "fabless-design + silicon-foundry" industrial paradigm of modern semiconductor-chip design and manufacturing. As Assistant Director for Strategic Computing at DARPA, Lynn next crafted the meta-architecture and led the planning of the Strategic Computing Initiative, the Department of Defense’s major 1980's effort to coalesce the technology-base for modern intelligent weapons systems.
    [Show full text]