Steve Furber

Steve Furber
Steve Furber
Born	Stephen Byram Furber (1953-03-21) 21 March 1953 Manchester
Residence	Wilmslow, England.
Nationality	British
Fields	Neural Networks Networks on Chip Microprocessors Neuromorphic engineering
Institutions	University of Manchester University of Cambridge Acorn Computers
Alma mater	Manchester Grammar School University of Cambridge (BA 1974, PhD 1980)
Thesis	Is the Weis-Fogh principle exploitable in turbomachines? (1979)
Doctoral advisor	John Ffowcs Williams
Doctoral students	William Bainbridge Joy Bose Sergio Davies Chris Emmons Philip Endecott Tomaz Felicijan Francesco Galluppi Martin Grymel Daranee Hormdee Xin Jin Muhammad Khan Jianwei Liu Yijun Liu Henry Okoyo Eustace Painkras Nigel Paver Oleg Petlin James Patterson Alexander Rast Basabdatta Sen Tom Sharp Yebin Shi Jian Wu Shufan Yang Zongchuan Yu
Other notable students	Simon Segars (CEO of ARM)
Known for	Acorn Computers ARM architecture BBC Micro SpiNNaker Human Brain Project ARM System–on–Chip Architecture
Influences	Sophie Wilson Hermann Hauser James Lighthill John Conway
Notable awards	CBE (2008) FRS (2002) FREng, FIET, CITP, CEng Computer History Museum Fellow (2012) Lovelace Medal (2014) DFBCS (2014)
Website apt.cs.man.ac.uk/people/sfurber manchester.ac.uk/research/steve.furber

Stephen Byram "Steve" Furber CBE, FRS, FREng (born 21 March 1953) is the ICL Professor of Computer Engineering at the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester and is probably best known for his work at Acorn Computers, where he was one of the designers of the BBC Micro and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor.

Education

Furber was educated at Manchester Grammar School and represented the UK in the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hungary in 1970 and won a bronze medal. He went on to study the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at St John's College, Cambridge, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics in 1974. In 1978, he was appointed the Rolls-Royce Research Fellow in Aerodynamics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and was awarded a PhD in 1980 on the fluid dynamics of the Weis-Fogh principle.

Acorn Computers, BBC Micro and ARM

From 1980 to 1990, Furber worked at Acorn Computers where he was a Hardware Designer and then Design Manager. He was a principal designer of the BBC Micro and the ARM microprocessor. In August 1990 he moved to the University of Manchester to become the ICL Professor of Computer Engineering and established the Amulet research group.

Research

In 2003, Furber was a member of the EPSRC research cluster in biologically-inspired novel computation. On 16 September 2004, he gave a speech on Hardware Implementations of Large-scale Neural Networks as part of the initiation activities of the Alan Turing Institute.

Furber's latest project is known as SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network Architecture), also nicknamed the "brain box", to be constructed at the University of Manchester. This is an attempt to build a new kind of computer that directly mimics the workings of the human brain. Spinnaker is essentially an artificial neural network realised in hardware, a massively parallel processing system eventually designed to incorporate a million ARM processors. The finished Spinnaker will model 1 per cent of the human brain's capability, or around 1 billion neurons. The Spinnaker project aims amongst other things to investigate:

• How can massively parallel computing resources accelerate our understanding of brain function?
• How can our growing understanding of brain function point the way to more efficient parallel, fault-tolerant computation?

Furber believes that "significant progress in either direction will represent a major scientific breakthrough".

Furber's research interests include asynchronous systems, ultra-low-power processors for sensor networks, on-chip interconnect and globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS), and neural systems engineering.

Awards and honours

A significant part of Furber's research is funded by grants that have been awarded by the EPSRC. In February 1997, Furber was elected a Fellow of the British Computer Society. In 1998, he became a member of the European Working Group on Asynchronous Circuit Design (ACiD-WG). In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into microprocessor technology.

Furber is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IEEE (2005) and the IET, and is a Chartered Engineer. In September 2007 he was awarded the prestigious IET Faraday Medal. In 2010 he gave the IET Pinkerton Lecture.

Furber was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours and was elected as one of the three laureates of Millennium Technology Prize in 2010 (with Richard Friend and Michael Grätzel), for development of ARM processor.

In 2012, Furber was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his work, with Sophie Wilson, on the BBC Micro computer and the ARM processor architecture."

In 2014, he was made a Distinguished Fellow at the British Computer Society (DFBCS) recognising his contribution to the IT profession and industry, joining the likes of Bill Gates, Tim Berners Lee, Vint Cerf and Tom Kilburn.

Furber's nomination for the Royal Society reads:

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Furber was played by actor Sam Philips in the BBC Four documentary drama Micro Men, first aired on 8 October 2009.

Personal life

Furber playing bass guitar.

Furber is married to Valerie Elliot with two daughters and plays 6-string and bass guitar.

External links

• Acorn recollections
• BBC News Technology – Home computing pioneer honoured 29 December 2007
• BBC News – Scientists to build 'brain box' 17 July 2006
• BBC News Technology – The Tech Lab: Steve Furber
• Lecture by Furber on the Future of Computer Technology
• Steve Furber Video Interview – 17-08-2009
• Steve Furber Talk @ Acorn World – 13-09-2009

Academic offices
Preceded by Brian Warboys	Head of the School of Computer Science, University of Manchester 2001–2004	Succeeded by Chris Taylor