Director, Advanced Module Development, External Development and Manufacturing, Texas Instruments

Inducted in 2004

Judy’s career at Texas Instruments (TI) has taken her in many directions, however, since the early 90s move to Dallas, all have focused on leading-edge process technology. After working in several process development roles, she was promoted to the position of process engineering manager of DMOS5—TI’s first 200-mm wafer fabrication facility.

After eight years at TI, Judy became a manager of the Lubbock fab’s "Etch/ Metallization Module," meaning she was the leader of a group of about 75 process engineers, equipment engineers, and production operators working together to meet all the production, cost, and quality goals for a set of related but different process steps. This job was a key step in her career development because it was her first opportunity to lead others doing jobs she had not done herself.

Process engineering (PE) was a major functional group within the organization that ramped the factory from a cleanroom under construction to TI’s largest, most advanced factory, producing 42,000 wafers per month. She held this job from 1995 to 2000, growing the PE team from about 15 to about 120 engineers and technicians.

The team introduced four new technology generations ("nodes") during this time and were responsible for setting up and improving the steps of the wafer processing to meet yield, quality, and cost goals that allowed TI to be a world-class supplier of CMOS chips.

In 2000, Judy moved to a position leading TI’s Silicon Technology Development (SiTD) 90-Nanometer Process Engineering team, which was focused on the timely delivery of new and cost-effective silicon process technology. This process capability is a key enabler of TI’s continued competitive strength in digital signal processing and other CMOS SOC products.

Her son and daughter were born while she was working at TI in the mid-80s.

At that time, the semiconductor industry was a man’s world, and Judy was one of the few women engineers working in the fab. Judy stood out when she became a pregnant engineer. Even then, TI was progressive and had good policies about how the situation was handled.

She met her husband, Tom, at TI in Lubbock and were married in 1981. Tom worked in TI projects leading large manufacturing teams. Observing and talking with him added yet another helpful dimension to her leadership learning.

While she was a leader at TI, she demonstrated exceptional concern about the workplace role of women and workplace diversity. Mentoring other women was a constant for many years. One project was co-founding the SiTD Women’s Network in 2002.

She is an alumnus of the 2004 class of Leadership Texas.

Judy was a founder of the Women of TI Fund, which is a donor-advised fund held in partnership with the Dallas Women’s Foundation. The Women of TI Fund aims to close the gender gap in STEM professions by increasing the number of girls graduating from high school who then enter a university-level technical degree program.

Another board she has served on for four years is the Technology Grant advisory board, chartered by the State of Texas Higher Education Coordinating board, which is sponsored by the Texas Engineering and Technology Consortium. TETC is a group of companies that have a big presence in Texas and work to influence the government to support technology and engineering education.

Judy chaired the board and supervised the process of awarding grants. As part of this responsibility, she was able to visit the universities that were running grant projects for project reviews. She also had the opportunity to testify at the THECB session where she has talked with leading Texas educators about how the grants have helped improve science student retention.

Judy’s first job at TI was as a new products engineer. She worked in the production wafer fab trying to get the next generation of technology ready.

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