Steve Furber | |
|---|---|
 Furber in 2009 | |
| Born | Stephen Byram Furber (1953-03-21)21 March 1953 (age 72)[6] Manchester, England[7] |
| Education | Manchester Grammar School |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, MMath, PhD)[6][8] |
| Known for | |
| Spouse | [6] |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Is the Weis-Fogh principle exploitable in turbomachines? (1979) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Ffowcs Williams[3][4] |
| Notable students | Simon Segars[5] |
| Website | apt manchester |
Stephen Byram Furber (born 21 March 1953)[6] is an English computer scientist, mathematician and hardware engineer, andEmeritusICLProfessor ofComputer Engineering in theDepartment of Computer Science at theUniversity of Manchester, UK.[12] After completing his education at theUniversity of Cambridge (BA,MMath,PhD), he spent the 1980s atAcorn Computers, where he was a principal designer of theBBC Micro and theARM32-bitRISCmicroprocessor.[13] As of 2023[update], over 250 billion ARM chips have been manufactured, powering much of the world'smobile computing andembedded systems, everything from sensors to smartphones to servers.[14][15][16][8]
In 1990, he moved toManchester to lead research intoasynchronous circuits,low-power electronics[17] andneural engineering, where theSpiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker) project is delivering a computer incorporating a million ARM processors optimised forcomputational neuroscience.[2][18][19][20][21]
Furber was educated atManchester Grammar School[6][22] and represented the UK in theInternational Mathematical Olympiad in Hungary in 1970 winning a bronze medal.[23] He went on to study theMathematical Tripos as an undergraduate student ofSt John's College, Cambridge, receiving aBachelor of Arts (BA) andMaster of Mathematics (MMath –Part III of the Mathematical Tripos) degrees.[8] In 1978, he was appointed aRolls-Royceresearch fellow inaerodynamics atEmmanuel College, Cambridge and was awarded a PhD in 1980 for research on thefluid dynamics of theWeis-Fogh mechanism[4] supervised byJohn Ffowcs Williams.[3][24][25] During his PhD in the late 1970s, Furber worked on a voluntary basis forHermann Hauser andChris Curry within the fledgingAcorn Computers (originally the Cambridge Processor Unit), on a number of projects; notably a microprocessor basedfruit machine controller, and theProton – the initial prototype version of what was to become theBBC Micro, in support of Acorn's tender for theBBC Computer Literacy Project.[26][27][28][29][30]
In 1981, following the completion of his PhD and the award of the BBC contract to Acorn computers, Furber joined Acorn where he was a Hardware Designer and then Design Manager. He was involved in the final design and production of theBBC Micro and later, theAcorn Electron, and theARM microprocessor. In August 1990 he moved to theUniversity of Manchester to become theInternational Computers Limited (ICL) Professor of Computer Engineering and established theAMULET microprocessor research group.
Furber's main research interests are inneural networks,networks on chip andmicroprocessors.[2] In 2003, Furber was a member of theEPSRC research cluster in biologically inspired[31] novel computation. On 16 September 2004, he gave a speech onHardware Implementations of Large-scale Neural Networks as part of the initiation activities of theAlan Turing Institute[citation needed].
Furber's most recent projectSpiNNaker,[9][32][33][34][35][36] is an attempt to build a new kind of computer that directly mimics the workings of the human brain. Spinnaker is anartificial neural network realised in hardware, amassively parallel processing system eventually designed to incorporate a million ARM processors.[37][38] The finished Spinnaker will model 1 per cent of the human brain's capability, or around 1 billion neurons. The Spinnaker project[39] aims amongst other things to investigate:
Furber believes that "significant progress ineither direction will represent a major scientific breakthrough".[39] Furber's research interests includeasynchronous systems, ultra-low-power processors forsensor networks, on-chip interconnect andglobally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS),[40] andneural systems engineering.[41][42][43][44]
His research has been funded by theEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC),[45]Royal Society[46] and theEuropean Research Council (ERC).[8]
In February 1997, Furber was elected a Fellow of theBritish Computer Society. In 1998, he became a member of the European Working Group on Asynchronous Circuit Design (ACiD-WG). He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002[46] and was Specialist Adviser to theHouse of Lords Science and TechnologySelect Committee inquiry into microprocessor technology.[citation needed]
Furber was elected aFellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng),[6] theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2005[citation needed] and aFellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET).[when?] He is aChartered Engineer (CEng).[when?] In September 2007 he was awarded theFaraday Medal[47] and in 2010 he gave thePinkerton Lecture.[48]
Furber was appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2008 New Year Honours[49][50] and was elected as one of the three laureates ofMillennium Technology Prize in 2010 (withRichard Friend andMichael Grätzel), for development of ARM processor.[51] In 2012, Furber was made a Fellow of theComputer History Museum "for his work, withSophie Wilson, on the BBC Micro computer and the ARM processor architecture."[52][53]
In 2004 he was awarded aRoyal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.[46] In 2014, he was made aDistinguished Fellow at the British Computer Society (DFBCS) recognising his contribution to the IT profession and industry.[54] Furber's nomination for theRoyal Society reads:
Professor Furber is distinguished for his fundamental contributions to the design and analysis of electronic systems, especially microprocessors. He was the original designer of the hardware architecture of the ARM processor, the world's leadingembedded processor core and a major engineering and commercial success for the United Kingdom. Having moved to Manchester University, he established a research team to investigateasynchronous processor design, which rapidly made fundamental contributions to the field. He has shown how to combine academic design theories with practical engineering constraints to achieve a remarkable and elegant synthesis. His work demonstrates in particular how to design microprocessors with low power and low radio frequency emissions, necessary for future wireless applications. Furber has designed a series of highly original asynchronous processors to execute theARMinstruction set. These have been fabricated and subjected to extensive experimental analysis. Furber's group is the world's leading centre of research in both fundamental theory and engineering implementation of such devices.[55]
In 2009,Unsworth Academy (formerly called Castlebrook High School) in Manchester introduced a house system, withFurber being one of the four houses.[56] On 15 October 2010, Furber officially opened the Independent Learning Zone in Unsworth Academy.[57] In 2012, a building atRadbroke Hall was named in his honour byBarclays Bank.[58]
In 2022, he was awarded theCharles Stark Draper Prize by theNational Academy of Engineering of the United States of America alongsideJohn L. Hennessy,David A. Patterson andSophie M. Wilson for contributions to the invention, development, and implementation ofreduced instruction set computer (RISC) chips.[59][1] Furber was played by actor Sam Philips in theBBC Four documentary dramaMicro Men,[60] first aired on 8 October 2009.
The Furber Chair in Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Manchester is named in his honour. As of 2025[update] this is held byAndré van Schaik.[61]
Furber is married to Valerie Elliott with two daughters, 3 grandchildren[6] and playsbass guitar.[22]
The design of a general-purpose processor, in common with most engineering endeavours, requires careful consideration of many trade-offs and compromises
Maths is the only sport I've played for my country
UK scientists aim to model 1 per cent of a human brain with up to one million ARM cores. ... ARM was approached in May 2005 to participate in SpiNNaker ... agreement extends to Manchester making enough chips for a computer with a million cores.
"All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available underCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies".Archived from the original on 11 November 2016. Retrieved9 March 2016.
This article incorporatestext available under theCC BY 4.0 license.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Head of theDepartment of Computer Science, University of Manchester 2001–2004 | Succeeded by Chris Taylor |