The tree search processor for real-time track finding

We propose a dedicated parallel and pipelined hardware to implement a binary search strategy, for real-time track finding in high-energy physics, based on a large bank of pre-calculated combinations of trajectory points. The bank is organized into a hierarchical structure whose levels correspond to the pipeline stages. Many state machines compare independent bank sections to the event for track identification. High density commercial RAMs store the bank; the machines are easily packed into FPGA devices