Elsa Reichmanis is a chemist and engineer who has worked to develop sophisticated chemical processes and materials that are used in the manufacture of integrated circuits , or computer chips. She has served as supervisor of the Radiation Sensitive and Applications Group at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, since 1984. As of 1994 she holds eleven patents, and she received the R & D 100 Award for one of the one hundred most significant inventions of 1992. She received the 1993 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Annual Achievement Award for her contributions in the field of integrated circuitry.

Several of Reichmanis's patents are for the design and development of organic polymers--known as resists--that are used in microlithography. Microlithography is the principal process by which circuits, or electrical pathways, are imprinted upon the tiny silicon chips that drive computers. During the multi-stage process of chip manufacture, layers of resist material are applied...