An ICTP-IAEA Virtual Meeting

The school will cover key aspects of fully-programmable Systems-On-Chip (SoC) technology and its applications to Nuclear and related instrumentation. The aim is to familiarize participants with underlying software design tools and hardware platforms through tutorials and project examples in the field of nuclear applications.  

Traditional FPGA devices have been utilized in many nuclear and related instruments for the past few decades, allowing multiple and parallel processing of signals from radiation detectors and other sensors. These features make instruments more compact by reducing number of required processors and minimizing complexity of analog electronics for signal processing. In the last few years new programmable SoC emerged which integrate the software programmability of powerful processors with the hardware configurability of FPGAs.
In the first two weeks, participants will be familiarized with software automation tools and hardware setups based on SoC, through theoretical lectures, tutorials and assisted hands-on laboratory sessions. Programming at the block logic level as well as processor level will be performed and interfacing with a wide variety of modular platforms will be undertaken. In the third week, participants will do projects and build embedded instruments for Nuclear and related applications. Candidates willing to propose open research projects are especially encouraged to apply.