Speaker
Description
PHYS476 is an upper-division undergraduate course at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa designed to introduce physics majors to modern electronics and its applications in experimental science. The course integrates hands-on lab work with theoretical lectures to provide students with practical experience in digital circuit design, FPGA programming, and machine learning applications for real-time data analysis.
A key focus of the course is on project-based learning, where students develop, optimize, and implement neural network models using the hls4ml framework and deploy them on FPGAs using Vitis HLS. Students may choose between two final project tracks—waveform signal processing or 2D fast tracking—to explore realistic use cases in particle or nuclear physics.
The course emphasizes reproducibility, hardware-software integration, and real-time verification using simulation or actual FPGA boards. Through this interdisciplinary approach, PHYS476 equips students with skills relevant to both academic research and industry, helping them bridge the gap between physical sciences and modern engineering practices.
