Lynn Conway | |
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 Conway in 2006 | |
| Born | January 2, 1938 Mount Vernon, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 9, 2024 (aged 86) Jackson, Michigan, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
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Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 – June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and transgender activist.
Conway worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advancement used in out-of-order execution, used by most modern computer processors to improve performance. IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to undergo a gender transition, which the company apologized for in 2020.
After completing her transition she took a new name and identity and restarted her career. She joined Xerox PARC in 1973, where she led the "LSI Systems" group. She initiated the Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution in very large-scale integrated (VLSI) microchip design. That revolution spread rapidly through the research universities and computing industries during the 1980s, incubating an emerging electronic design automation industry, spawning the modern 'foundry' infrastructure for chip design and production, and triggering a rush of impactful high-tech startups in the 1980s and 1990s.
She began quietly coming out in 1999 and was a transgender activist until her death of heart disease in 2024.
- ^ "CHM 2014 Fellow "For her work in developing and disseminating new methods of integrated circuit design"". Computer History Museum. Archived from the original on July 3, 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2018.