Nicolò Biesuz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Nicolò Biesuz

Proceedings of Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics — PoS(TWEPP2018), 2019

The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perfo... more The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perform pattern matching using the hit information of the ATLAS experiment silicon tracker. The system is one of the two main processing elements of FTK and is mainly based on the use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits, the AM chips, specifically designed to execute pattern matching with a high degree of parallelism. It finds track candidates at low resolution that are seeds for a full resolution track fitting. The AM system implementation is based on a collection of "AM boards", the "Serial Link Processors" (AMBSLP). The AMBSLP is based on a network of high speed serial links to sustain very high data traffic. It has a high power consumption (∼250 W) because of its high performance requirements and, therefore, the AM system needs custom power and cooling. This proceedings reports on the performance studies of the system made with the first production of 64 AMBSLPs integrated in FTK and results from the first ATLAS data during 2018.


Abstract – The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been desig... more Abstract – The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perform pattern matching using the hit information of the ATLAS experiment silicon tracker. The AM is the heart of FTK and is mainly based on the use of ASICs (AM chips) designed to execute pattern matching with a high degree of parallelism. The AM system finds track candidates at low resolution that are seeds for a full resolution track fitting. To solve the very challenging data traffic problems inside FTK, multiple board and chip designs have been performed. The currently proposed solution is named the “Serial Link Processor” and is based on an extremely powerful network of 828 2 Gb/s serial links for a total in/out bandwidth of 56 Gb/s. This paper reports on the design of the Serial Link Processor consisting of two types of boards, the Local Associative Memory Board (LAMB), a mezzanine where the AM chips are mounted, and the Associative Memory Board (AMB), a 9U VME board which...

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

We explore the application of concepts developed in High Energy Physics (HEP) for advanced medica... more We explore the application of concepts developed in High Energy Physics (HEP) for advanced medical data analysis. Our study case is a problem with high social impact: clinicallyfeasible Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF). MRF is a new, quantitative, imaging technique that replaces multiple qualitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) exams with a single, reproducible measurement for increased sensitivity and efficiency. A fast acquisition is followed by a pattern matching (PM) task, where signal responses are matched to entries from a dictionary of simulated, physically-feasible responses, yielding multiple tissue parameters simultaneously. Each pixel signal response in the volume is compared through scalar products with all dictionary entries to choose the best measurement reproduction. MRF is limited by the PM processing time, which scales exponentially with the dictionary dimensionality, i.e. with the number of tissue parameters to be reconstructed. We developed for HEP a powerful, compact, embedded system, optimized for extremely fast PM. This system executes real-time tracking for online event selection in the HEP experiments, exploiting maximum parallelism and pipelining. Track reconstruction is executed in two steps. The Associative Memory (AM) ASIC first implements a PM algorithm by recognizing track candidates at low resolution. The second step, which is implemented into FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), refines the AM output finding the track parameters at full resolution. We propose to use this system to perform MRF, to achieve clinically reasonable reconstruction time. This paper proposes an adaptation of the HEP system for medical imaging and shows some preliminary results.

Terahertz radiation is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from hundreds of MHz up t... more Terahertz radiation is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from hundreds of MHz up to several THz. Recent advances in detector technology enable us to develop compact and affordable systems able to generate and detect THz radiation, thus filling the so-called “terahertz gap". Terahertz cameras with thousands of pixels arranged in one or two dimensions allow for real-time imaging applications. THz imaging techniques can be used to detect materials that are opaque to that radiation, such as metal or ceramic objects embedded in THz-transparent materials (e.g. paper, textiles, etc.). Due to its non-ionising nature, THz radiation does not require special shielding precautions compared to X-ray systems, and can be safely applied to living tissue. Terahertz imaging can be employed to detect forbidden objects in security checks with parcels scanners and full body scanners. This paper will describe our recent developments towards an innovative application of a sub-THz imagi...

The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond... more The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond the Standard Model in channels involving coupling to the Higgs boson. A search for massive resonances decaying into couples of bosons is described. The considered final states are: HH, V H, VV , V γ and γγ with V indicating either the W or the Z boson. Final states with different number of leptons or photons and where, in many cases, at least one Higgs decays into a b-quark pair are studied using different jet reconstruction techniques which allow to optimize the signal acceptance for low or high Higgs boson transverse momentum. The most recent diboson resonance searches using LHC Run 2 data are described.

The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond... more The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond the Standard Model in channels involving coupling to the Higgs boson. A search for massive resonances decaying into couples of bosons is described. The considered final states are: HH, V H, VV , V γ and γγ with V indicating either the W or the Z boson. Final states with different number of leptons or photons and where, in many cases, at least one Higgs decays into a b-quark pair are studied using different jet reconstruction techniques which allow to optimize the signal acceptance for low or high Higgs boson transverse momentum. The most recent diboson resonance searches using LHC Run 2 data are described.

International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems, 2015

In this paper we describe a Content Addressable Memory architecture designed in 28 nm CMOS techno... more In this paper we describe a Content Addressable Memory architecture designed in 28 nm CMOS technology and based on the 65 nm XORAM cell previously developed. The cell is composed by two main blocks: a 6T SRAM, and a 4T XOR logic gate. Each XORAM cell makes a bitwise comparison between input data and stored data. The memory is organized in 18-bit words, and all the 18 XOR outputs bits must have a low logic value to trigger a high logic value of the single bit match line. A 18-input NOR gate performs this operation. The memory operation is triggered by the change of the least significant bit of the 18-bit input word, which is delayed w.r.t. the other bits. In this way, the logic does not require any clock. The proposed architecture is based on CMOS combinational logic, and it does not require any precharge operation, nor control and timing logic. The Associative Memory block is useful for several pattern recognition tasks, such as track recognition in high energy physics experiments, and image recognition for medical applications.

Proceedings of Topical Workshop on Electronics for Particle Physics — PoS(TWEPP2018), 2019

The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perfo... more The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perform pattern matching using the hit information of the ATLAS experiment silicon tracker. The system is one of the two main processing elements of FTK and is mainly based on the use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits, the AM chips, specifically designed to execute pattern matching with a high degree of parallelism. It finds track candidates at low resolution that are seeds for a full resolution track fitting. The AM system implementation is based on a collection of "AM boards", the "Serial Link Processors" (AMBSLP). The AMBSLP is based on a network of high speed serial links to sustain very high data traffic. It has a high power consumption (∼250 W) because of its high performance requirements and, therefore, the AM system needs custom power and cooling. This proceedings reports on the performance studies of the system made with the first production of 64 AMBSLPs integrated in FTK and results from the first ATLAS data during 2018.


Abstract – The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been desig... more Abstract – The Associative Memory (AM) system of the Fast Tracker (FTK) processor has been designed to perform pattern matching using the hit information of the ATLAS experiment silicon tracker. The AM is the heart of FTK and is mainly based on the use of ASICs (AM chips) designed to execute pattern matching with a high degree of parallelism. The AM system finds track candidates at low resolution that are seeds for a full resolution track fitting. To solve the very challenging data traffic problems inside FTK, multiple board and chip designs have been performed. The currently proposed solution is named the “Serial Link Processor” and is based on an extremely powerful network of 828 2 Gb/s serial links for a total in/out bandwidth of 56 Gb/s. This paper reports on the design of the Serial Link Processor consisting of two types of boards, the Local Associative Memory Board (LAMB), a mezzanine where the AM chips are mounted, and the Associative Memory Board (AMB), a 9U VME board which...

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

We explore the application of concepts developed in High Energy Physics (HEP) for advanced medica... more We explore the application of concepts developed in High Energy Physics (HEP) for advanced medical data analysis. Our study case is a problem with high social impact: clinicallyfeasible Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF). MRF is a new, quantitative, imaging technique that replaces multiple qualitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) exams with a single, reproducible measurement for increased sensitivity and efficiency. A fast acquisition is followed by a pattern matching (PM) task, where signal responses are matched to entries from a dictionary of simulated, physically-feasible responses, yielding multiple tissue parameters simultaneously. Each pixel signal response in the volume is compared through scalar products with all dictionary entries to choose the best measurement reproduction. MRF is limited by the PM processing time, which scales exponentially with the dictionary dimensionality, i.e. with the number of tissue parameters to be reconstructed. We developed for HEP a powerful, compact, embedded system, optimized for extremely fast PM. This system executes real-time tracking for online event selection in the HEP experiments, exploiting maximum parallelism and pipelining. Track reconstruction is executed in two steps. The Associative Memory (AM) ASIC first implements a PM algorithm by recognizing track candidates at low resolution. The second step, which is implemented into FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), refines the AM output finding the track parameters at full resolution. We propose to use this system to perform MRF, to achieve clinically reasonable reconstruction time. This paper proposes an adaptation of the HEP system for medical imaging and shows some preliminary results.

Terahertz radiation is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from hundreds of MHz up t... more Terahertz radiation is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from hundreds of MHz up to several THz. Recent advances in detector technology enable us to develop compact and affordable systems able to generate and detect THz radiation, thus filling the so-called “terahertz gap". Terahertz cameras with thousands of pixels arranged in one or two dimensions allow for real-time imaging applications. THz imaging techniques can be used to detect materials that are opaque to that radiation, such as metal or ceramic objects embedded in THz-transparent materials (e.g. paper, textiles, etc.). Due to its non-ionising nature, THz radiation does not require special shielding precautions compared to X-ray systems, and can be safely applied to living tissue. Terahertz imaging can be employed to detect forbidden objects in security checks with parcels scanners and full body scanners. This paper will describe our recent developments towards an innovative application of a sub-THz imagi...

The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond... more The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond the Standard Model in channels involving coupling to the Higgs boson. A search for massive resonances decaying into couples of bosons is described. The considered final states are: HH, V H, VV , V γ and γγ with V indicating either the W or the Z boson. Final states with different number of leptons or photons and where, in many cases, at least one Higgs decays into a b-quark pair are studied using different jet reconstruction techniques which allow to optimize the signal acceptance for low or high Higgs boson transverse momentum. The most recent diboson resonance searches using LHC Run 2 data are described.

The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond... more The discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider motivates searches for physics beyond the Standard Model in channels involving coupling to the Higgs boson. A search for massive resonances decaying into couples of bosons is described. The considered final states are: HH, V H, VV , V γ and γγ with V indicating either the W or the Z boson. Final states with different number of leptons or photons and where, in many cases, at least one Higgs decays into a b-quark pair are studied using different jet reconstruction techniques which allow to optimize the signal acceptance for low or high Higgs boson transverse momentum. The most recent diboson resonance searches using LHC Run 2 data are described.

International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems, 2015

In this paper we describe a Content Addressable Memory architecture designed in 28 nm CMOS techno... more In this paper we describe a Content Addressable Memory architecture designed in 28 nm CMOS technology and based on the 65 nm XORAM cell previously developed. The cell is composed by two main blocks: a 6T SRAM, and a 4T XOR logic gate. Each XORAM cell makes a bitwise comparison between input data and stored data. The memory is organized in 18-bit words, and all the 18 XOR outputs bits must have a low logic value to trigger a high logic value of the single bit match line. A 18-input NOR gate performs this operation. The memory operation is triggered by the change of the least significant bit of the 18-bit input word, which is delayed w.r.t. the other bits. In this way, the logic does not require any clock. The proposed architecture is based on CMOS combinational logic, and it does not require any precharge operation, nor control and timing logic. The Associative Memory block is useful for several pattern recognition tasks, such as track recognition in high energy physics experiments, and image recognition for medical applications.