Prof Stephen Furber (CBE FRS FREng FBCS FIET CITP CEng) - personal details

Steve Furber is the ICL Professor of Computer Engineering in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He received his B.A. degree in Mathematics in 1974 and his Ph.D. in Aerodynamics in 1980 from the University of Cambridge, England. From 1980 to 1990 he worked in the hardware development group within the R&D department at Acorn Computers Ltd, and was a principal designer of the BBC Microcomputer and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor, both of which earned Acorn Computers a Queen's Award for Technology. Upon moving to the University of Manchester in 1990 he established the Amulet research group which has interests in asynchronous logic design and power-efficient computing, and which merged with the Parallel Architectures and Languages group in 2000 to form the Advanced Processor Technologies group. The APT group is supported by an EPSRC Portfolio Partnership Award.

Steve served as Head of the Department of Computer Science in the Victoria University of Manchester from 2001 up to the merger with UMIST in 2004.

Fellowships and Awards

Steve is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the IEEE, and a Chartered Engineer. In 2003 he was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal for "an outstanding and demonstrated personal contribution to British engineering, which has led to market exploitation". In 2004 he became the holder of a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award . In 2007 he was awarded the IET Faraday Medal, "...the most prestigious of the IET Achievement Medals." Steve was awarded a CBE in the 2008 New Year Honours list "for services to computer science".

Public and professional service

Steve is chair of UKCRC, and is Vice-President Learned Society and Knowledge Services and a Trustee of the BCS.

In 2002 Steve served as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into 'Innovations in Microprocessing', which resulted in the report "Chips for Everything: Britain's opportunities in a key global market"

Technology Exploitation

In December 2003 Silistix Limited was formed to commercialise self-timed Network-on-Chip technology developed within the APT group. Steve is an observer on the Silistix Board and chairs the Technical Advisory Committee.

Cogniscience Limited is a University company established to exploit IP arising from the APT research into neural network systems.

Steve's book

An overview of the world's leading 32-bit embedded processor: ARM System-on-Chip Architecture

Building a Common Vision for the UK Microelectronic Design Research Community

This community-building initiative began with a workshop hosted by the IEE at Savoy Place, London, on November 15 2004. A series of further workshops and meetings led to a Network Grant proposal funded by EPSRC, which culminated is a set of Grand Challenge proposals.

• IEEE