1. Stephen Byram Furber was born on 21 March 1953 and is a British computer scientist, mathematician and hardware engineer, and Emeritus ICL Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester, UK.
Steve Furber was educated at Manchester Grammar School and represented the UK in the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hungary in 1970 winning a bronze medal.
Steve Furber went on to study the Mathematical Tripos as an undergraduate student of St John's College, Cambridge, receiving a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Mathematics degrees.
In 1981, following the completion of his PhD and the award of the BBC contract to Acorn computers, Steve Furber joined Acorn where he was a Hardware Designer and then Design Manager.
Steve Furber was involved in the final design and production of the BBC Micro and later, the Acorn Electron, and the ARM microprocessor.
In 2003, Steve Furber was a member of the EPSRC research cluster in biologically inspired novel computation.
Steve Furber's most recent project SpiNNaker, is an attempt to build a new kind of computer that directly mimics the workings of the human brain.
Steve Furber believes that "significant progress in either direction will represent a major scientific breakthrough".
Steve Furber's research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Royal Society and the European Research Council.
In February 1997, Steve Furber was elected a Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Steve Furber was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002 and was Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into microprocessor technology.
Steve Furber was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2005 and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Steve Furber was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours and was elected as one of the three laureates of Millennium Technology Prize in 2010, for development of ARM processor.
Professor Steve Furber is distinguished for his fundamental contributions to the design and analysis of electronic systems, especially microprocessors.
Steve Furber was the original designer of the hardware architecture of the ARM processor, the world's leading embedded processor core and a major engineering and commercial success for the United Kingdom.
Steve Furber has shown how to combine academic design theories with practical engineering constraints to achieve a remarkable and elegant synthesis.
Steve Furber has designed a series of highly original asynchronous processors to execute the ARM instruction set.
Steve Furber's group is the world's leading centre of research in both fundamental theory and engineering implementation of such devices.
In 2009, Unsworth Academy in Manchester introduced a house system, with Steve Furber being one of the four houses.
On 15 October 2010, Steve Furber officially opened the Independent Learning Zone in Unsworth Academy.
Steve Furber was played by actor Sam Philips in the BBC Four documentary drama Micro Men, first aired on 8 October 2009.
Steve Furber is married to Valerie Elliot with two daughters, 3 grandchildren and plays bass guitar.