Lynn Ann Conway was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender rights activist. While at IBM in the 1960s she invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advancement behind out-of-order execution used by most modern processors; IBM fired her in 1968 after she revealed her intention to transition, and apologized in 2020. After restarting her career at Xerox PARC from 1973 to 1983, she and Carver Mead co-led the Mead-Conway VLSI chip design revolution that reshaped microchip design in the 1980s, and she later joined the University of Michigan as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Awardhonorary doctor of Syracuse University 1 AwardNational Inventors Hall of Fame 1 AwardJohn Price Wetherill Medal 1 AwardComputer History Museum Fellow 1 AwardFellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1 AwardSociety of Women Engineers Achievement Award 1 AwardNCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award 1 FAQs
What was the Mead-Conway revolution that Lynn Conway helped lead?
A VLSI chip design method and textbook, built on her scalable design rules, that taught a generation of chip designers.
It was a new way of teaching and doing very large scale integrated, or VLSI, chip design. Lynn Conway co-wrote the textbook Introduction to VLSI Systems with Carver Mead, from a collaboration that ran from 1975 to 1980. At Xerox PARC she invented scalable, ratioed design rules that greatly simplified laying out VLSI circuits, and many designers did their first VLSI projects through the MOSIS prototyping system, which was based on her work at PARC.
Connections
In Field
Source Wikipedia: Lynn Conway
In the Other Atlases
Nationality
Also in Geography Atlas: the nationality of this subject.
Sources
1. Wikidata: Lynn Conway
- Wikidata Q11490, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Wikidata Q11490 P569 (date of birth)
2. Wikipedia: Lynn Conway
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 - June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and transgender rights activist.
Infobox, Born
January 2, 1938
Infobox, Died
June 9, 2024
- In Field: Computer Architecture, Lead paragraph
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.