GSA recognizes semiconductor companies that have demonstrated excellence through their success, vision, strategy and future opportunities in the industry at its annual Awards Celebration.
Individual Awards
Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award
The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award recognizes individuals, such as its namesake, Dr. Morris Chang, for their exceptional contributions to drive the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities for the semiconductor industry.
The 2021 Recipient of the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award is Dr. Walden “Wally” Rhines
Dr. Walden “Wally” C. Rhines
President & Chief Executive Officer
Cornami, Inc.
WALDEN C. RHINES is President and CEO of Cornami, Inc., a fabless software/semiconductor company focused on intelligent computing for fully homomorphic encryption and machine learning. He was previously CEO of Mentor Graphics for 25 years and Chairman of the Board for 17 years. During his tenure at Mentor, revenue nearly quadrupled and market value of the company increased 10X.
Prior to joining Mentor Graphics, Dr. Rhines was Executive Vice President, Semiconductor Group, responsible for TI’s worldwide semiconductor business.
Dr. Rhines has served on the boards of Cirrus Logic, QORVO, TriQuint Semiconductor, Global Logic, PTK Corp. and as Chairman of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (five two-year terms). He is a Lifetime Fellow of the IEEE.
Dr. Rhines holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, a master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University and Honorary Doctor of Technology degrees from the University of Florida and Nottingham Trent University.
Rising Women of Influence Award
The Rising Women of Influence Award recognizes and profiles the next generation of women leaders in the semiconductor industry. Companies were encouraged to identify women with a technical background and education within their organization that they believe will be one of their key corporate executives over the next three or four years. Nominations were reviewed by an all-female executive committee that selected the top four candidates for recognition at the GSA Annual Awards Celebration.
2021 Nominees
The 2021 Recipient of the Rising Women of Influence Award is Teresa McLaurin, ARM
Teresa McLaurin
Fellow & Sr. Director of DFT Architecture
ARM
Teresa McLaurin is a Fellow and Senior Director of DFT (Design for Test) Architecture for all of Arm, based in Austin, Texas. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring that all Arm IP (Intellectual Property) are enabled to be tested fully and with high quality by all of Arm’s partners with their myriad of methodologies and flows. To enable this, she must not only…
Teresa McLaurin, Fellow & Sr. Director of DFT Architecture, ARM
Teresa McLaurin is a Fellow and Senior Director of DFT (Design for Test) Architecture for all of Arm, based in Austin, Texas. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring that all Arm IP (Intellectual Property) are enabled to be tested fully and with high quality by all of Arm’s partners with their myriad of methodologies and flows. To enable this, she must not only drive Arm IP methodologies, but much of the DFT industry, to support the methodologies in the Arm IP. She works closely with Arm partners and EDA vendors to help achieve this goal. She has helped drive multiple IEEE standards as part of this effort and published many papers in support of this effort. In contrast, every Arm partner has their own methodology and everything that Arm DFT does must be able to enable those methodologies as well. She believes working for Arm has put her in a unique and exciting position to directly influence the testability of billions of the chips manufactured in the world. Teresa is a respected authority in her field and received the Bob Madge Innovation Award recognizing the work she has done in DFT and in moving her industry forward.
Teresa started her career in test characterization engineering, transitioned into management after a few years and then transitioned back into a technical role in the burgeoning area of Design for Test engineering. She chose to stay technical, rather than go into management, because she could see lots of area for improvement especially with regard to the IP arena.
Teresa was the first female Fellow in Arm and is passionate about other women moving forward in their roles.
Rashmi Char
VP, Engineering
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Rashmi Char serves as vice president of engineering for Qualcomm Technologies Incorporated. Her current responsibilities include leading the 700-person global product and tools organization and serving as the overall MSM software project engineer for chipsets across the company’s portfolio, the overall IP guardian leading the…
Rashmi Char, VP, Engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Rashmi Char serves as vice president of engineering for Qualcomm Technologies Incorporated. Her current responsibilities include leading the 700-person global product and tools organization and serving as the overall MSM software project engineer for chipsets across the company’s portfolio, the overall IP guardian leading the IP Protection efforts to protect Qualcomm’s IP for Qualcomm technologies, and the overall tools platform project engineer to build a best-in-class Snapdragon Developer Environment.
Rashmi Char joined Qualcomm in 1997 as an intern and has held roles of increasing responsibility in Mobile Product Development and Commercialization since that time. One of her first key positions was in UMTS Protocol Stack Development. She then moved on to lead global Software Design and Development teams to support High-Speed Data Services over all air interface technologies (UMTS, LTE, CDMA). As Software Project Engineer and Architect, Rashmi led the worldwide commercialization of the first worldwide LTE (4G) capable handset launches on all major carriers’ networks including VZW, ATT, SKT, LGU+, and Sprint and a number of cutting-edge 4G modems for mobile products. Rashmi excels at multitasking across various roles, directly leading hundreds of employees, while also simultaneously leading projects comprised of thousands of engineers around the world.
Rashmi is a member of Qualcomm’s Women’s Leadership Council, executive sponsor of Qualcomm Women’s organization (QWomen), Board member of the Girl Scouts of San Diego, Board member of San Diego Fleet Science Center, and a member of the CSU San Marcos Advisory Council for the College of Science and Mathematics.
Rashmi firmly believes that attracting and retaining more women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce will maximize innovation, creativity, and competitiveness and is passionate about doing her part to promote women in STEM. Rashmi’s efforts in diversity advocacy are recognized by employees in and outside her own org. She works deliberately to ensure that her team is diverse and intentionally addresses diversity & Inclusion during program reviews, hiring initiatives, AR reviews and more which inspires those around her. Rashmi works closely with our QWomen employee network and created the Women’s Speakership Club, a platform for women to share their professional experiences, promote their prospects and network within Qualcomm. Rashmi is also an avid member of her community and contributes a lot of volunteer efforts towards getting a more diverse population to enter STEM education and professions
Rashmi has a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electronics and Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from SDSU.
Dina McKinney
Sr. VP, Hardware Processors Business Unit
Marvell Technology, Inc.
Dina McKinney is Senior Vice President of Hardware for the Processor Business Unit at Marvell. In this role, Dina is responsible for Marvell’s infrastructure processor development and delivering products and new technologies at the forefront of 5G, data center, enterprise and…
Dina McKinney, Sr. VP – Hardware Processors Business Unit, Marvell Technology, Inc.
Dina McKinney is Senior Vice President of Hardware for the Processor Business Unit at Marvell. In this role, Dina is responsible for Marvell’s infrastructure processor development and delivering products and new technologies at the forefront of 5G, data center, enterprise and automotive markets. She joined Marvell from Cypress (now Infineon) where she was Senior Vice President of Central Design Engineering and led roadmap planning, platform IP/SOC development, Central SoC teams, CAD/EDA, design methodologies and IT/Compute.
Prior, Dina was Qualcomm Bay Area Site Lead and Senior Executive where she led Snapdragon GPU Engineering for high performance, mid and value tiers. Previous to this, Dina held the position of Corporate Vice President of CPU Processor Design for mobile, desktop and server at AMD. Earlier in her career, she had engineering leadership roles in processor development at Alchemy Semiconductor, Motorola, and Digital Equipment Corporation, respectively.
Dina is a strong advocate for women in engineering as a previous Executive Board Member of the Bay Area Qualcomm Women In Science and Technology, co-founder of AMD’s Women Forum and prior Board Member of Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. Dina holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology from Central New England College, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and is a veteran of the USAF.
Mydung Pham
Corporate VP, Silicon Design Engineering
AMD
Mydung Pham is a corporate vice president of design engineering in the Technology & Engineering Group at AMD. In her current role, Mydung leads AMD’s Central Design Methodology team delivering best in-class tools and methodology to support AMD designs. Her overarching goal…
Mydung Pham, Corporate VP, Silicon Design Engineering, AMD
Mydung Pham is a corporate vice president of design engineering in the Technology & Engineering Group at AMD. In her current role, Mydung leads AMD’s Central Design Methodology team delivering best in-class tools and methodology to support AMD designs. Her overarching goal is to continuously innovate and improving design productivity to accelerate product time to market. In addition, Mydung is leading an optimization of EDA workloads on AMD EPYC servers, that in turn enabled EDA optimized cloud offering from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – a first in the industry.
Prior to joining AMD in 2010, Mydung spent 18 years at IBM and Motorola in various technical leadership and management roles in CPU and SOC design for PC, Servers, and Game Consoles.
Mydung supported girl’s engineering day and held tech talks to electrical and computer engineering students from the University of Texas. She also was a panelist of the “Taking it to the Next Level” for the Austin Women in Semi Alliance; supported by the GSA Women’s Leadership Initiative.
Mydung earned a bachelor’s degree in Electric and Computer Engineering from University of Vermont. Mydung holds 2 U.S. patents and 6 publications.
Private Company Awards
Start-Up to Watch Award
GSA’s Private Awards Committee, comprised of venture capitalists and select serial entrepreneurs in the industry, selects up to two winners for the Start-Up to Watch award by identifying the semiconductor company (or companies) that demonstrates the potential to positively change its market or the semiconductor industry, in general, through the innovative use of semiconductor technology or a new application for semiconductor technology. Criteria:- Company must be a semiconductor company.
- Company must be privately held.
- Company must NOT have achieved greater than or equal to $20 million of cumulative product revenue (i.e., cumulative product revenue since market introduction).
Nominees
- Astera Labs
- Ayar Labs
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Menlo Micro – Winner
Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company Award
The industry’s Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company award is designed to identify the private company garnering the most respect from the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunity. GSA’s Private Awards Committee reviews all private semiconductor companies, conducts analysis of each company’s performance and likelihood of long-term success, and provides a list of respectable private companies to be voted on by GSA membership. On-line voting takes place to allow GSA members, including semiconductor companies and partners, to cast a ballot for the private semiconductor company they most respect. The selected companies are based on the Committee’s Criteria. Criteria:- Company must be a semiconductor company.
- Company must be privately held.
- Company must have achieved a minimum of $20 million of cumulative product revenue (i.e., cumulative product revenue since market introduction).
Nominees
- Ampere Computing
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SambaNova Systems – Winner
- SiFive
Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Awards
The industry’s Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Awards are designed to identify the public companies garnering the most respect from the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunities. GSA reviews the criteria below for all publicly traded semiconductor companies for two 12-month periods using preceding quarters Q3, Q4, Q1, and Q2. All companies that meet these criteria are segmented into four separate revenue groups and each GSA member company votes for a single winner of the Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company for each group.- All publicly traded semiconductor companies
- Company must report $100M or more in total Revenue for each of the two 12-month periods
- Stock price must be greater than $1 USD on JUN 30 for each of the two 12-month periods (applies to U.S.-listed companies only)
- Company must have a Market Capitalization of $250M or more on JUN 30 for each of the two 12-month periods
- YoY company revenue growth must be greater than YoY industry revenue growth for the last two 12-month periods
Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Revenue Groups:
- Achieving >$5 Billion in Annual Sales
- Achieving $1 Billion to $5 Billion in Annual Sales
- Achieving $500 Million to $1 Billion in Annual Sales
- Achieving $100 Million to $500 Million in Annual Sales
Nominees
- Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving greater than $5 Billion in Annual Sales)
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AMD – Winner
- Analog Devices
- NVIDIA
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- Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving $1 Billion to $5 Billion in Annual Sales)
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Marvell – Winner
- Qorvo
- Skyworks Solutions, Inc.
- Xilinx, Inc.
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- Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving $500 Million to $1 Billion in Annual Sales)
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- Nordic Semiconductor
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Silicon Labs- Winner
- Wolfspeed, Inc.
- Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving $100 Million to $500 Million in Annual Sales)
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- Ambarella
Lattice Semiconductor- Winner
- Vicor
Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company Award
The Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company Award is derived based on a broad evaluation of the financial health and performance of public semiconductor companies. Numerous financial metrics as well as their respective rates of change or year-over-year improvement are analyzed. These financial metrics transverse various categories including but not limited to growth rates, margins, cash flow, profitability ratios, efficiency ratios and return on capital. All companies are ranked on each metric as well as its rate of change, and then the overall performance is compared to the peer universe to determine the winner. This award has two categories:- Achieving Greater than $1 Billion in Annual Sales
- Achieving Up to $1 Billion in Annual Sales
Nominees
- Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving greater than $1 Billion in Annual Sales)
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- AMD
Broadcom, Inc. – Winner
- Qualcomm, Inc.
- Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company Award
(Achieving up to $1 Billion in Annual Sales)
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- ELAN Microelectronics Corp.
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FocalTech Systems Co., Ltd. – Winner
- Holtek Semiconductor, Inc.
Analyst Favorite Semiconductor Company Award
Semiconductor financial analysts from top-tier firms select their favorite semiconductor company for this award. The analysts base their decision on historical, as well as projected data, such as stock price, earnings per share, revenue forecasts and product performance.Nominees
- Analyst Favorite Semiconductor Company Award
(Chosen by managing director Rajvindra Gill of Needham & Company, LLC)
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- NVIDIA
- NXP Semiconductors
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Synaptics – Winner
- Analyst Favorite Semiconductor Company Award
(Chosen by managing director Mark Lipacis of Jefferies, LLC)
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- Allegro MicroSystems
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Marvell – Winner
- onsemi
Regional Awards
As a global alliance, GSA introduced an award specifically for the Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions. The awards will recognize a semiconductor company headquartered in each respective region that clearly demonstrates the most strength when measuring products, vision, leadership and success in the marketplace. GSA’s APAC and EMEA Leadership Councils will determine the nominees and the winners of their respective regions.- Outstanding Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Company Award
- Outstanding EMEA Semiconductor Company Award
Nominees
- Outstanding Asia Pacific Semiconductor Company Award
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MediaTek, Inc. – Winner
- Novatek Microelectronics Corp.
- SK hynix, Inc.
- UNISOC Technologies Co., Ltd.
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- Outstanding EMEA Semiconductor Company Award
- Graphcore
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Nordic Semiconductor – Winner
- NXP Semiconductors
- Xsight Labs
PRICING
With this year’s event being virtual, pricing has been reduced for members and GSA guests.
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Members FREE
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GSA Guests $50
To help make your experience as convenient as possible, GSA has arranged a special room rate at the Avatar Hotel for attendees of the 2019 GSA Awards Celebration. Please contact the Awards Registration Team at any time if you have questions about travel arrangements.
AVATAR HOTEL
GSA’s preferred hotel for the 2019 Awards Dinner Celebration is the Avatar Hotel.
4200 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
You can reserve a room online or call (800) 233-1234. Please specify the group code “G-GSA1” under the group name of Global Semiconductor Alliance when requesting a reservation.
For more specific details about room reservations and rates at the Avatar Hotel, please visit our FAQ page.
ADDITIONAL HOTEL OPTIONS
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