Muchen He
Accomplished early-career engineer and UBC Master's graduate with a background in computer architecture and a keen interest in HDL design emulation and validation. My academic research experience complements my practical work, showcasing my commitment to continuous learning and problem-solving in the field.
Skills
Python, Low-level (C, assembly), OOP (C++, Java), HDL (Verilog, SV), FPGA / emulation, USB, PCIe
Linux, CI,, Automation, git, HTML+CSS, JavaScript, Jekyll, Data visualization, Docker
LaTeX, Academic and Technical Writing, Jupyter, Markdown
Honors & Awards
NSERC CGS-Masters, 2021
Faculty of Applied Science Graduate Award, 2020
Electrical and Computer Engineering Capstone Faculty Award, 2020
Captain C Y Wu Scholarship, 2019
Trek Excellence Scholarship, 2019
Dean's Honor List, 2017-2020
Certifications
Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW), 2022
Education
Thesis: Mitigation against Spectre and cache side channel attacks and CPU performance evaluation.
Courses: Adv. computer architecture, VLSI, computing systems, microcomputer systems design, data structures and algorithms, digital logic design
Experience
- Executed pre-silicon traffic tests on Siemens Veloce—a cycle-accurate hardware emulator with QEMU to verify RTL and firmware.
- Evaluated PCIe virtual IP and upgraded emulator tools, which enables a 30% increase in emulation speed.
- Developed USB-based debug proof-of-concept, leveraging ARM CoreSight IP for embedded debug and trace capabilities.
- Conducted debug of hardware and firmware on the emulator using Lauterbach CPU debugger, waveform analysis, and protocol analyzers.
- Streamlined build scripts, improved environment and tooling, and documented procedures, adding automations for efficiency.
- Explored state-of-the-art speculative execution attacks and cache side channel attacks.
- Identified key insights that aid in the design of performant architecture that is superior than prior defenses.
- Implemented prototype in the cycle-accurate gem5 simulator and devised experiments to obtain key metrics.
- Evaluated the effectiveness and the performance of the mitigation using PARSEC and SPEC2017 benchmarks.
- Developed terminal tools for FPGA workflows.
- Configured TeamCity CI for internal software and reduced release delay from 1 day to 30 minutes.
- Scripted automated tasks to verify project directory integrity.
- Authored technical documentation for changes and new features.
- Created technical documentation on industry CAD tools including Encounter, Virtuoso, ModelSim, and Q-Flow.
- Provided technical assistance by hosting office hours, tutorials, and supervising laboratory and electrical shop activities.
- Automated grading tasks with shell and Python scripts, reducing grading time by 75%.
- Created tutorial videos and technical support documentation for course content.
- Improved Frostbite engine's UI/UX for Anthem game with C++
- Wrote Python upgrade scripts to modify and validate XML and game assets.
- Investigated and resolved UI, keyboard/mouse input, and Origin API bugs.
- Collaborated with UI/UX artists and scripters to develop entities, demonstrating strong teamwork and communication skills.
- Developed application UI and implemented UX designer feature requests with Qt, C++, JavaScript, and three.js.
- Programmed WebGL to deliver interactive 3D viewers.
- Worked with University of Alberta SSRG to develop an Android tablet game in Java and Android SDK using the PhyDSL code generator.
- Implemented haptic and audio feedback and physics-enabled obstacles using Android API.
- Presented a poster talk on project specifications, goals, and experiences related to supervisor's research.
Projects
FantôMiss —Mitigating Spectre cache side channel attacks by leveraging a novel cache indexing policy to prohibit access to speculative data. (2022)
Bit Flip Attacks on DNNs —Deep learning attacks literature survey. (2022)
PhotoStats —Novel data visualization of Apple Photos library metadata. (2022)
FutureGazer —User study of gaze-tracking + virtual avatars on Zoom. (2021)
Sketch2Slides —Automated hand-drawn content to PowerPoint slides. (2020)
GPU HT —GPU-accelerated Hough transform with OpenCL and CUDA. (2020)
Skynet —FPGA real-time AI (object detection) onboard a multirotor drone. (2020)
FBVis —Novel visualization and animation of Facebook chat history. (2019)
Motorized Laser Pointer —PID-controlled 2-DOF laser pointer. (2018)
FPGA Fractal —Interactive Mandelbrot Set fractal on FPGA. (2018)
Fast Grader —Automated C programming lab grading. (2018)
Slapp —Sleep tracking web app with real-time database. (2017)
InsectNN —Neural network path-finding simulation. (2016)