Hardware Track-Trigger for CMS

The work described in this PhD thesis is a study of a real implementation of a track-findersystem which could provide reconstructed high transverse momentum tracks to the first-leveltrigger of the High Luminosity LHC upgrade of the CMS experiment. This is vital for the futuresuccess of CMS, since otherwise it will be impossible to achieve the trigger selectivity needed tocontain the very high event rates. The unique and extremely challenging requirement of thesystem is to utilise the enormous volume of tracker data within a few microseconds to arrive at atrigger decision. The track-finder demonstrator described proved unequivocally, using existing hardware, that areal-time track-finder could be built using present-generation FPGA-based technology which wouldmeet the latency and performance requirements of the future tracker. This means that more advancedhardware customised for the new CMS tracker shouldbe even more capable, and will deliver verysignificant gains for the future physics returns from the LHC.