2021 WISH Conference

WISH | Women in Semiconductor Hardware, is GSA WLI’s inaugural technical conference bringing together industry luminaries, entrepreneurs, and university women in STEM. The event showcased the changing face of technology and presented new awards celebrating the women who have helped to break the glass ceiling and those who are following in their footsteps.

Lisa Su / CEO / AMD & Emily Chang / Bloomberg

The program opened with a conversation between AMD CEO Lisa Su and Bloomberg anchor Emily Chang. The conversation covered a wide range of topics from Lisa’s experience throughout her career in the semiconductor industry to how to make the industry more attractive to STEM students.

Lisa Su was presented with the inaugural Women of Innovation Award that will be renamed in honor of Lisa to the “Dr. Lisa Su Woman of Innovation Award”.

This session highlighted the exceptional technical work performed by Women in Semiconductor Hardware. The technical presentations were reviewed and selected by the WLI Technical Steering Committee.

Track 1 – Process Technology

• Marie Garcia Bardon / Team Leader Design Technology Exploration (DETEx) and Principal Member of Technical Staff / imec
  Title:  Sustainability of semiconductor manufacturing as early target in technology pathfinding

• Azita Yazdani / Founder & CEO / Exergy Systems, Inc.
  Title: Future of the fab: Addressing climate change while improving quality

• Xiao Li, PhD / PhD / Principal CVD/Diff Engineer, Technology Development / Micron Technology
  Title: Effects of wafer bow and backside engineering solutions for 3D NAND scaling

Track 2 – System Technology

• Mouna Elkhatib / CEO / AONDevices
  Title: AONVoice Edge AI Processor: A Complete Development Flow from Data Acquisition to Inference on Chip to achieve best-in-class accuracy at ultra-low power

• Ou Li / Senior Director of Engineering / ASE, Inc.
  Title: The Future is Heterogeneous Integration

• Jaya Bindra / Sr. Manager Applications Engineering / Infineon Technologies
  Title: Smart World of IoT– The Edge is Getting Smarter, Smaller, and more Secured!

Moderator: Lip-Bu Tan / CEO / Cadence and Chairman / Walden International

Panelists:

• Gopi Sirineni / CEO / Axiado
• Maryam Rofougaran / co-CEO, COO, co-Founder / Movandi
• Sundari Mitra / Chief Incubation Officer / Intel

The panelists discussed the motivations and challenges of being a successful entrepreneur in the semiconductor technology field. They also offered their insightful and candid advice to up and coming entrepreneurs on what to expect when trying to launch a startup.

Female Up & Comer Award

The Female Up and Comer Award recognizes and profiles the next generation of young women in the semiconductor industry who have made exceptional contributions toward the development, innovation, growth, and success in her short time in the industry.

Winner: Lindsey Kostas / Qualcomm

Design the Difference (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) Company Award Sponsored by Accenture

The Designing the Difference Award recognizes companies who are making a significant and measurable impact on advancing the industry through diversity and inclusion.

Winner: Micron Technology

Rani Borkar / Corporate Vice President / Microsoft

Day 2 of WISH opened with Rani Borkar’s Keynote on “Bending the Arc: Activating the Power of a Community”. Rani shared her insights and advice based on her experience in this industry on how women can excel in this community of semiconductor hardware.

This session highlighted the exceptional technical work performed by Women in Semiconductor Hardware. The technical presentations were reviewed and selected by the WLI Technical Steering Committee.

Track 1 – Design Technology

• Alessandra Nardi / Engineering Group Director / Cadence
  Title: Safety-Critical Applications: An EDA Perspective

• Mrudula Gore / Sr. Chip Engineer / Graphcore
  Graphcore IPU: Software Focused Chip Design

• Sally Medling / Sr. Verification Engineer / Microsoft
  Title: Deadlock Free and Easily Adaptable: Recipe for a Proven Custom Interconnect

Track 2 – Validation and Test

• Mamta Bansal / Sr. Director Engineering / Qualcomm
  Title: Silicon Gold Rush

• Tanya Nigam / Fellow / GlobalFoundries
  Title: Innovation in reliability test methodologies for Consumer & Automotive Applications

• Priyanka Joshi / Technical Intern / Synopsys Bangalore
  Title: Spyglass Netlist level Check on Low Power DDR Design

Moderator: Emily Reilly / SVP & Chief Human Resources Officer / GlobalFoundries

Panelists:

• Sharawn Connors Tipton / Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer / Micron Technology
• Susan Schmitt Winchester / SVP & Chief Human Resources Officer / Applied Materials Mike Cadigan / SVP, Customer Design Enablement / GlobalFoundries

The panelists discussed the challenges and opportunities to strengthen and grow our businesses, people, and our lives through diversity, equity, and inclusion. They also shared their experience and advice on initiatives to implement in the workplace to drive these changes.

The Honorable Gina Raimondo / Secretary of Commerce / US Department of Commerce

Secretary Raimondo addressed the semiconductor supply chain issue that is disrupting economy everywhere and the commitment to address STEM challenges and the willingness to work with the semiconductor industry to increase the percentage of women in the industry from top to bottom.

Dr. Audrey Pool O’Neal / Adjunct Associate Professor and Director of Women in Engineering Program / UCLA (WE@UCLA)

The WISH conference closed with an inspirational keynote by Dr Audrey Pool O’Neal on “From Pioneerism to Critical Mass – Let n = YOU + 2”, offering her insights on a formula to realize an equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment. Working together is what solves the biggest challenges and come up with solutions that work for everyone.