Greener computers explored at Queen's

Technology experts from around the world are coming to Queen's to explore new ways to make computers more efficient and greener.

Computing is now recognised as being responsible for significant electricity consumption and wastage around the world. Statistics indicate that computing consumes more than three per cent of the global electricity consumption and performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle. As limitations on computing memory and energy waste increases, international experts are hoping to develop alternatives to reduce and prevent future waste.

The Applied Reconfigurable Computing Conference (ARC) will span over three days at Queen's and Xilinx, the worlds' leading programmable technology company will discuss the challenges in delivering the next generation internet. Professor Steve Furber who was a principal designer of the BBC Microcomputer and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor will also talk about building parallel computer systems with more than a million embedded processors

Professor Roger Woods from Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) at Queen's University said: "The problem of computing electricity inefficiency is getting worse as computers pervade our lives. This conference looks to tackle the problem head on by developing new computer architectures to allow us to reduce the energy budge and perform the high levels of computation needed in many new applications.

"ARC Conference brings together world experts to look at advances and includes some new work on how computation is undertaken in the brain to allow engineers to build a computing system-on-chip with thousands of computers."

More information:
The Applied Reconfigurable Computing Conference is hosted by Queen's University Belfast from 23-25th March 2011 for more information go to www.arc2011.org

Provided by Queen's University Belfast