Ten years ago, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) found itself in a trough due to strategic missteps.

The CEO of Intel publicly stated: "AMD is not coming back, let's remove it from the list of competitors and replace it with Qualcomm."

Achieving a turnaround and regaining vitality was undoubtedly a formidable challenge.

To everyone's surprise, in 2012, Dr. Lisa Su, a Chinese-American woman who had served at Freescale Semiconductor for five years and was promoted to Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Networking and Multimedia Group, parachuted into AMD as Chief Operating Officer.

Under the scrutiny of the industry, Dr. Su led AMD to break through barriers and achieve remarkable success.

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After a decade of relentless effort and outstanding performance, Dr. Su has now joined the ranks of the highest-paid female CEOs in the world, with her annual salary once reaching $58.5 million, earning her the title of "Queen of the Workforce" in contemporary times.

This queen, often adorned with a gold Rolex watch, sporting a diamond ring the size of a pigeon's egg on her finger, and holding in her hand a chip that embodies cutting-edge technology.

Looking back at Dr. Su's extraordinary journey and outstanding contributions, we cannot help but sincerely admire: all of this is the glory she deserves for her talent and hard work.

Born in Taiwan, China, in 1969, Dr. Su's father, Su Chun-Hui, was an academic achiever who studied mathematics and mathematical statistics at National Taiwan Normal University and Tsinghua University in Hsinchu.When Su Zifeng was three years old, her father, Su Chunhuai, demonstrated his exceptional talent by earning a full scholarship to study at Columbia University in the United States, prompting the entire family to relocate to America.

Not only was Su Chunhuai committed to his personal growth, but he also placed great emphasis on his children's education. At the age of five, Su Zifeng began to be exposed to and learn the piano, which significantly fostered her ability to focus.

However, Su Zifeng's interests were not limited to this; she had a particular passion for "disassembling objects." Her room was filled with various electronic toys, which she would take apart, leaving them in pieces.

Upon witnessing their child's behavior of disassembling toys, most parents might exclaim in shock and then proceed with stern criticism or attempts to stop the activity.

In contrast, Su Chunhuai did not attempt to halt her actions but instead often provided more complex items for his daughter to disassemble, frequently praising her with, "You did a great job!"

It was the continuous support and encouragement from her father that ignited Su Zifeng's strong interest in the field of electronics and shaped her character to be brave in challenges and full of confidence.

In 1983, at the age of 14, Su Zifeng was admitted to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science in the United States.

She excelled both academically and in extracurricular activities, representing her school in numerous competitions and winning many awards. During her senior year, she overcame many outstanding American competitors to win the renowned "Westinghouse Science Talent Search" award.

Subsequently, she received invitations from several top universities and ultimately chose the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in Electrical Engineering.

Electrical Engineering was recognized as one of the most challenging majors at MIT at the time, with its difficulty deterring many high-achieving students, and female students were particularly rare in this field.Lori Su's ability to stand firm in her choices is not only due to her passion but also closely related to the teachings imparted by her father since childhood.

Her father often said: "One must be brave enough to face and challenge those complex fields, and be committed to solving the most intractable problems, so as not to fall into the quagmire of mediocrity."

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lori Su delved into the profound theories of electrical engineering with tenacious perseverance and a solid attitude.

During this period, she was exposed to silicon wafers and gained a deep understanding of the future potential of semiconductors.

After completing her undergraduate studies, Lori Su had considered entering the workforce directly, but her father's advice led her to decide to pursue further education.

Following her father's guidance, she continued to stay at MIT to pursue her master's and doctoral degrees.

It turned out that this decision brought a significant turning point in her life trajectory.

With an outstanding degree from a prestigious university, Lori Su successfully attracted the attention of the world's top technology companies, thus obtaining a valuable opportunity to showcase her talents in the cutting-edge field of semiconductor technology.

In 1994, after graduating at the age of 25, Lori Su joined Texas Instruments as a semiconductor technology specialist.

A year later, she joined IBM, taking on the important responsibility of developing copper processes for IBM's chip research and development.It is worth mentioning that Lisa Su took on the task of silicon wafer testing in the laboratory during her freshman year, becoming one of the first researchers dedicated to the study of Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology. This technology enhances chip performance by constructing transistors on an insulating material layer and reducing power consumption, successfully breaking through the technological bottleneck in chip development at the time.

Lisa Su's research experience and achievements in chips also made her a key figure in the development of copper processes for chips as soon as she joined IBM. In the early stages, technicians generally preferred to use aluminum as the "wire" material. However, as the integration of chips continued to increase and the wires became more refined, the high resistivity of aluminum gradually could not meet the stringent requirements of technological development. In light of this, the industry began to actively seek a more superior conductive material. Among them, copper was chosen for its excellent electrical conductivity.

However, copper materials faced a series of technical challenges in key areas such as bonding with silicon. After joining, Lisa Su led the team to break through the barriers of copper-silicon bonding with SOI (Silicon on Insulator) technology, which greatly enhanced chip performance. Lisa Su's outstanding performance has been widely recognized by the industry. Her alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, even named her as one of the "top innovators under 35" and specially named a building as "Lisa Su Building" to highlight her outstanding contributions.

Lisa Su also gave back to her alma mater, generously donating a nano-lab.She stated: "MIT has played a pivotal role in my life. I feel honored to be able to influence and inspire the next generation of students and researchers."

Lisa Su spent a 12-year career at IBM, gradually promoting from a researcher to the vice president of research and development, becoming a top expert in the semiconductor field and also holding the highest position achieved by a Chinese individual at IBM.

However, unexpectedly, in 2012, Su came to AMD during its lowest point.

At that time, AMD was facing a severe setback in the chip field, on one hand, under intense competitive pressure from Intel, and on the other hand, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy due to decision-making errors, even selling its chip manufacturing factory.

Within just four years, AMD changed four CEOs, and male managers across Silicon Valley were avoiding this predicament as much as possible.

Therefore, Su resolutely joined AMD, almost appearing in the role of a savior.

Founded in 1969, AMD's main business in its early stages was to redesign products for Intel, enhancing their performance and efficiency.

Although long-term suppressed by Intel in competition, AMD's development history remained relatively stable through strategies such as price reduction.

Until 2006, AMD made a significant strategic adjustment, investing heavily to acquire ATI.

After 2006, AMD fell into financial difficulties, resulting in losses and the brink of bankruptcy.As a woman of Chinese descent, Dr. Lisa Su has not only become the first female CEO of AMD but also the first in the semiconductor industry, undoubtedly attracting widespread attention and discussion.

Upon joining AMD, Dr. Su discovered that the actual situation of the company was more severe than what was described by outsiders.

After taking the helm at AMD, Dr. Su had a sincere intention to invite the company's founder, Jerry Sanders, to return. To this end, she personally visited Beethoven Manor.

Sanders was deeply moved, but after careful consideration, he declined the proposal and told Dr. Su: "AMD is now a ship under your command, and this excellent team will be led by you."

Encouraged by this, Dr. Su returned and began to boost employee morale while initiating a series of bold reforms.

The first of Dr. Su's reforms was "resource optimization." She reduced the global workforce by 7% and streamlined all redundant departments.

This decision faced fierce opposition from many, but Dr. Su clearly stated that to save the company from its "critical condition," it was necessary to endure certain pain and losses.

The second reform was "opening up." To raise funds, Dr. Su decisively licensed AMD's core technology—the "Zen architecture processor technology"—to the Chinese company Tianjin Haiguang.

At the same time, she also promoted a partnership between AMD and Tongfu Microelectronics, jointly establishing a joint venture and transferring 85% of the equity to Tongfu Microelectronics.

These two major moves increased AMD's book cash by $660 million, not only helping AMD through the difficult times but also providing the necessary capital support for Dr. Su's subsequent reforms.The third thing that Lisa Su did was to deepen customer trust.

Lisa Su not only utilized Google Translate to delve into user reviews on e-commerce platforms but also personally participated in the project acceptance process to accurately capture market demands and potential pain points.

In addition to this, Lisa Su made a transformation: she re-planned AMD's technical roadmap.

As AMD was consuming a lot of resources in competition with Intel, Lisa Su took decisive action, replacing the heads of the CPU and GPU departments, and sincerely invited two industry veterans, Keller and Koduri, to be in charge of CPU and GPU design, respectively, helping AMD's technology to rejuvenate and reach the industry peak again.

Lisa Su placed a big bet on the new architecture of personal computer CPUs, Zen. After four years of meticulous research and development and an accumulated investment of over 2 million man-hours, this architecture was finally unveiled.

The launch of the Zen architecture was like a thunderclap out of the blue, shocking the entire computer field. It not only revitalized AMD but also brought about a transformation in the industry.

In March 2017, AMD's first PC processor based on the new Zen architecture, Ryzen, was officially launched worldwide, with significantly improved performance, successfully competing with Intel's Core processors at the time, and receiving high praise from the market and users.

Ironically, on the day of Ryzen's release, Intel's official Weibo in China, known as the "toothpaste factory," was collectively mocked.

The reason was that during the ten years of AMD's decline, after Intel launched the Core i series in 2008, each update only improved by 3%-5% compared to the previous generation at the same frequency, like squeezing toothpaste, which made netizens feel painful but helpless.

In contrast, after the launch of AMD's Zen architecture series of chips, their high performance was highly praised.Seeing the fierce competition from rivals, Intel successively launched the 7th and 8th generation Core processors, a pace that left users astounded.

This was significantly faster than Intel's previous product update cycle of 1 to 1.5 years, and the performance improvement of the products was as high as 40%. It is evident that competition is the greatest motivator for progress.

However, not to be outdone, AMD promptly released the second generation of ThreadRipper, further intensifying the competition in the processor market.

In 2018, due to production capacity limitations, Intel faced challenges such as shortages and price increases, while AMD, with its second-generation Ryzen series' outstanding performance and widespread acclaim, quickly captured a portion of Intel's market share.

At the same time, as the only company in the industry that manufactures both CPUs and GPUs, AMD's technical strength allows for the integration of both on a single chip, promoting the development of thinner and lighter laptops.

As a result, AMD processors were highly favored by Huawei, and in June 2018, Huawei launched its first laptop equipped with an AMD processor.

In contrast, Intel lost a significant customer, Apple, in 2019 due to production delays and other issues, facing an unprecedented predicament.

AMD seized market opportunities in a timely manner, successfully winning the favor of well-known customers such as Lenovo, Sony, and Google, thereby propelling AMD back to the industry's peak.

AMD's stock price also soared, steadily climbing from less than $2 per share in 2015 to $50.11 per share at the close on March 4, 2020, an impressive increase.

In 2022, AMD's market value made a significant leap, breaking through the $180 billion mark, significantly surpassing industry competitor Intel, marking that AMD, once jokingly referred to as "the eternal second," has finally achieved a comeback.Today, Dr. Lisa Su has been at the helm of AMD for twelve years. Under her leadership, the company has significantly expanded, with the number of employees steadily growing from the original 8,000 to nearly 30,000.

In the wave of the new era, Dr. Lisa Su is poised to continue guiding AMD, which has already left a profound mark in the history of Silicon Valley's transformation, to write an even more outstanding and unparalleled chapter of legend.