David K. Lam

David Kitping Lam is a Chinese-born American technology entrepreneur. He founded Lam Research Corporation in 1980. He presently serves as Chairman of Multibeam Corporation (Santa Clara, CA), which manufactures complementary electron beam lithography (CEBL) systems. He also heads the David Lam Group, an investor and business advisor for high-growth technology companies. Early life and education Born in Guangdong, China, David Kitping Lam spent his early childhood in Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City in South Vietnam, a large "Chinatown" near Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City). His family, which fled from China to South Vietnam in the 1940s, eventually grew to include seven boys and one girl. As their new home in Vietnam became an increasingly dangerous place to live in the mid-1950s, Lam's parents moved David and most of his siblings to Hong Kong. Lam's interest in math and science grew during his teenage years in Hong Kong. After graduating from Pui Ching Middle School in Hong Kong, he boarded a ship that embarked on a three-week voyage to North America, where he would subsequently pursue studies in engineering and physics at the University of Toronto. Lam received his Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto in 1967. During his undergraduate years, he performed nuclear physics research under Professor Derek Paul and co-authored a paper on electron-positron annihilation (1967). Lam earned his M.S. degree and Sc.D. doctoral degree (Chemical Engineering) in 1970 and 1973, respectively, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his post-graduate years, he was a co-inventor of a plasma-produced solid lubricant that was patented under the title, "Fluorine Plasma Synthesis for Carbon Monofluoride." His doctoral research included a paper titled, "A Mechanisms and Kinetics Study of Polymeric Thin-film Deposition in Glow Discharge" that was published later in the Journal of Macromolecular Science – Chemistry (1976).