Having little prior experience in the CPU development field, she was nevertheless called the “hidden hand” in microchip development, as she found a way to simplify and scale a method for designing microchips, revolutionizing the process forever. This shift in the field is known as “the Mead-Conway revolution” in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI), and it led to the types of microchips seen today in mobile phones and tablets.

“My field would not exist without Lynn Conway,” said Valeria Bertacco, a professor at University of Michigan, where Conway worked as a professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science.

“Chips used to be designed by drawing them with paper and pencil like an architect’s blueprints in the pre-digital era,” Bertacco wrote. “Conway’s work developed algorithms that enabled our field to use software to arrange millions, and later billions, of transistors on a chip.”

That’s amazing! What a legacy to leave the world! I’m sorry we’ve lost her, but 86 is a good long life.