David May (computer scientist) facts for kids

Michael David May, born on February 24, 1951, is a famous British computer scientist. He works as a Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Bristol. He also started a company called XMOS Semiconductor. Until 2014, he was the main technology expert there.

David May is best known for being the lead designer of the transputer. This was a special kind of computer chip. He holds many patents, which are like official rights for his inventions. These patents are mostly about microprocessors and how computers can do many things at once (multi-processing).

Life and Work

David May was born in Holmfirth, a town in Yorkshire, England. He went to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. From 1969 to 1972, he studied at King's College, Cambridge, which is part of the University of Cambridge. He first studied Mathematics and then Computer Science.

Later, he moved to the University of Warwick to research robotics. While working on robots, he needed a way for computers to handle many tasks at the same time. This led him to create an early concurrent programming language called EPL. This language ran on several small computers linked together. This work connected him with important people like Tony Hoare and Iann Barron, who helped start a company called Inmos.

In 1978, David May joined Inmos. He became the lead designer of the transputer chip. He also created the Occam programming language to work with it. His ideas for Occam were influenced by Tony Hoare and his work on CSP.

The first test version of the transputer was called the Simple 42. It was finished in 1982. The first transputers that were sold, the T212 and T414, came out in 1985. The T800, which could handle complex math, followed in 1987. May also helped design one of the first VLSI packet switches, called the C104. This was for the communication system of the T9000 transputer.

David May worked closely with Tony Hoare and the Programming Research Group at Oxford University. They used special methods to check if the designs of the T800 and T9000 were correct. This was one of the first times these methods were used in designing computer chips. It helped create the first version of the FDR checker, a tool used to verify designs.

In 1995, May became a professor of computer science at the University of Bristol. He was the head of the computer science department from 1995 to 2006. He is still a professor at Bristol. He also supports XMOS, a company he helped start in 2005. Before XMOS, he worked on Picochip, where he wrote the first set of instructions for their chips.

David May is married and has three sons. He lives in Bristol, United Kingdom.

Awards and Honors

In 1990, David May received an Honorary DSc (Doctor of Science degree) from the University of Southampton. In 1991, he was chosen as a Fellow of The Royal Society, which is a very high honor for scientists. In 1992, he received the Clifford Paterson Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics.

In 2010, he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

May's Law

May's Law is a saying that talks about how computer software changes. It is often compared to Moore's Law, which says that computer power doubles about every 18 months.

May's Law suggests that:

Software becomes half as efficient every 18 months, balancing out Moore's Law.

This means that even though computers get faster, software often uses up that extra speed.