PROFESSOR STEPHEN FURBER: CREATOR OF THE ARM MICROPROCESSOR
The 2010 Millennium Technology Prize laureate Steve Furber is the principal designer of the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor, an innovation that revolutionised mobile electronics. The ingeniously designed processor enabled the development of cheap, powerful handheld, battery-operated devices. In the past 25 years nearly 20 billion ARM based chips have been manufactured.
Professor of Computer Engineering, the University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Born March 1953 in Manchester, United Kingdom
Timeline
1982 Acorn BBC Micro launched
1983 Acorn starts RISC Machine project with Furber as principal designer
1985 First ARM microprocessor produced
1987 ARM processor debuts as the first RISC processor for Acorn Archimedes desktop computer
1990 Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) spins out of Acorn and Apple Computers collaboration, Furber continues his research of low power computing as a professor at University of Manchester.
1998 ARM listed on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Over 50 million ARM powered products shipped.
2010 20 billion ARM based chips manufactured
"For seminal contributions to the development of high performance microprocessors based on reduced instruction set (RISC) architecture and its implementation on silicon chips. This invention has enabled the revolution in mobile electronics. To date, more than 18 billion ARM-based chips have been manufactured and are used in ubiquitous computing applications, such as mobile phones, digital photography and video, music players, fixed and wireless networking, automobiles and health care, benefitting a large number of people all over the world." - International Selection Committee
You may never have heard of ARM microprocessors, but probably use at least one every day. They tick inside our mobile phones, mp3-players, video recorders and home routers. Today ARM technology is used in more than 98 percent of the world’s mobile handsets and over one-quarter of all electronic devices.
In 1985 Furber become the father of a microprocessor phenomenon - a single chip which did the same amount of work as other 32-bit microprocessors but used one tenth of their transistors - and consequently, one tenth of their electricity. Furber was the principal designer of the ARM 32 bit microprocessor at Acorn Computers.
The original design was simple and elegant. It exploited Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture. ARM was the world’s first commercially available RISC microprocessor. It was initially used in the Acorn Archimedes personal computer released in 1987.
The relative simplicity of ARM processors made them suitable for low power applications. It is this that has allowed them to dominate the mobile and embedded electronics market as relatively low cost and small microprocessors and microcontrollers.
Furber's innovation has underpinned the rapid growth in mobile communications, which has opened up economic opportunities and enhanced the quality of life for billions in the developing and developed world.
Today about 98 percent of the more than one billion mobile phones sold each year use at least one ARM processor. The processors are also used extensively in other consumer electronics, including PDAs, digital media and music players, hand-held game consoles, calculators and computer peripherals such as hard drives and routers.
Read the whole story (PDF)
Professor Furber's The Advanced Processor Technologies research group
Wikipedia article about ARM architecture
