Luis Plana is a Research Fellow with the Advanced Processor Technologies (APT) Group in the Department of Computer Science. 

Luis obtained an Ingeniero Electrónico (Cum Laude) degree from Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela, an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Before coming to Manchester, Luis was an academic at Universidad Politécnica, Venezuela, for over 20 years, where he was Professor of Electronic Engineering.

Luis works in the general area of computer engineering and likes building interesting and challenging computer systems. He is a member of the Advanced Processor Technologies (APT) Group and his research interests include:

SpiNNaker: an Unconventional Massively-Parallel Computer

Luis is a member of the SpiNNaker Project team. The team, led by Prof. Steve Furber, is building a high-performance, GALS-based multiprocessor computer for the real-time modelling of large systems of spiking neurons, with a communications infrastructure inspired by neurobiology. The core component is a chip multiprocessor that incorporates 18 embedded processors, interconnected by a Network-on-Chip (NoC) which carries spike events between processors on the same or different chips. The design emphasises modelling flexibility, energy efficiency, and fault tolerance.

On-Chip Interconnect

Now that very large systems are manufactured in a single chip, the interconnection of the different modules that form the system becomes very complex. Luis is interested in Globally Asynchronous, Locally Synchronous (GALS) architectures, an interesting and promising approach that allows each module to operate with its own clock and operates the interconnect in a self-timed or asynchronous fashion.

Design and Synthesis of Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are computer-based systems (such as mobile phones, MP3 players and industrial controllers) usually designed to perform a few dedicated functions. Luis is interested in the performance and power efficiency of both synchronous and asynchronous embedded systems.