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Introduction to Hardware Design

This repository is for a potential class on introduction to hardware design tailored for students with no prior hardware experience. Through practical labs, students will learn to:

  • Identify computationally demanding tasks suitable for hardware acceleration.
  • Design efficient hardware and software accelerators using state-of-the-art Vitis HLS
  • Simulate and evaluate accelerators with in Vivado and python
  • Integrate accelerators in processor-based systems
  • Deploy projects onto FPGA boards with PYNQ-based python interfaces

If you are an NYU Tandon student, this class may be offered initially in Spring 2026.

Pynq-Z2 board

Image source: AMD University Program – PYNQ-Z2 Board

Pre-Requisites and Target Audience

This course is designed with the idea that anyone with a standard background in software can learn hardware with the right methodology. Anyone can tap into the amazing performance that custom hardware can offer.

Hardware acceleration enables dramatically faster computation in myriad areas including machine learning, signal processing, scientific computation, and robotics to name a few. It is our hope that the material will be of value to students and engineers for any discipline that hardware can help.

Pre-Requisites and Target Audience

This course is designed with the idea that anyone with a standard background in software can learn hardware with the right methodology. Anyone can tap into the amazing performance that custom hardware can offer.

Hardware acceleration enables dramatically faster computation in myriad areas including machine learning, signal processing, scientific computation, and robotics to name a few. It is our hope that the material will be of value to students and engineers for any discipline that hardware can help.

Target Platforms and Hardware Required

You can perform most of the class with free versions of software only. However, we also provide instructions on deploying the hardware on one of two FPGA platforms:

  • PYNQ-Z2: A low-cost, easy-to-use board ideal for teaching. We are considering using this platform for the introductory hardware design class at NYU.
  • RFSoC 4x2: A more powerful, but still relatively low-cost, board for specifically design wireless communications with high-speeds ADCs.

People

The material is developed by Sundeep Rangan, a Professor of ECE at New York University and Director of NYU Wireless.

Work in Progress

The site is still under construction and I have just added a few items. Long-term I am hoping to add a lot more demos as well as class material like lecture notes and problems.

Feedback

I would love to get your feedback -- positive or negative. Feel free to email me, or better yet, send me a Pull Request.

Github pages

Go to the Github pages for more.