Intel has released its new chip focused on quantum research, Tunnel Falls, its first silicon spin qubit device, which it has made available to the academic community to explore this technology and accelerate research development.
A qubit (or quantum bit) is the basic unit of information in quantum computing. While a bit can only represent a single binary value – that is, 0 or 1 – the qubit can represent a 0, a 1 or any ratio of 0 and 1 in the superposition of both states.
In this way, it allows quantum algorithms to process information in a much shorter time than the time required by a classical system. For this reason, quantum computing is being used to carry out discoveries in different fields such as health care, energy or environmental systems.
Within this framework, Intel has launched Tunnel Falls which, as described in a statement, is the company’s first silicon spin qubit device. Specifically, it is a 12-qubit silicon chip manufactured on 300-millimeter wafers at the D1 manufacturing plant.
This device takes advantage of Intel’s most advanced industrial transistor manufacturing capabilities, with technologies such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and gate and contact processing techniques.
As Intel explains, in the case of silicon spin qubits, the information – the 0s and 1s – is encoded in the spin (up or down) of a single electron. This translates to each qubit device being “essentially a single-electron transistor.” As a result, Intel can manufacture it using a flow similar to that used in a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) logic processing line.
Furthermore, another of the advantages of silicon spin qubits is that they outperform other qubit technologies for “the synergy it offers with cutting-edge transistors.” This is because they are about the size of a transistor and are therefore “up to a million times smaller” than other types of qubits, which measure around 50 square nanometers. The size of the silicon spin qubits thus allows for “more efficient” scaling, according to Intel.
Following this line, Intel also benefits from being able to use CMOS manufacturing lines to produce this chip, since it allows it to use “innovative” process control techniques to “improve performance and performance.”
In fact, in the case of 12-qubit Tunnel Falls, a 95 percent throughput rate has been achieved across the wafer, as well as voltage uniformity resembling that of CMOS logic processes. Also, each wafer provides 24,000 quantum dot devices.
For all these reasons, as stated by the director of Quantum Hardware at Intel, Jim Clarke, the launch of the new chip is “the next step in Intel’s strategy to build a complete commercial quantum computing system.”
COLLABORATION WITH THE QUANTUM RESEARCH COMMUNITY
Intel has made Tunnel Falls available to the quantum research community in order to promote the development of this technology, facilitating its investigation. To do this, the company is collaborating with the University of Maryland’s Laboratory of Physical Sciences (LPS) and College Park’s Qubit Collaboratory (LQC).
As detailed by the technology, academic institutions do not have large-volume manufacturing equipment like Intel. In this sense, by facilitating Tunnel Falls, researchers can start working with this chip in their quantum computing projects, instead of having to make their own.
As a consequence, this collaboration makes possible a broader range of experiments, learning more about the fundamentals of qubits and quantum dots, and developing new techniques for working with multi-qubit devices, according to Intel.
Specifically, Intel is collaborating with LQC on the Qubits for Computing Foundry (QCF) program through the US Army Office of Research. This cooperation will help democratize silicon spin qubits by allowing researchers to gain experience working with this technology.
The first quantum labs to participate in the program are LPS, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Rochester, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But, in addition, LQC continues to work with Intel to bring Tunnel Falls to other universities and research laboratories. Likewise, the information obtained in these investigations and experiments will be shared with the community so that the progress is even greater.
For his part, LPS Head of Quantum Information Science, Charles Tahan, has detailed that the LPS Qubit Collaboratory, together with the Army Research Office, intends to address the “difficult challenges facing qubit development.” ”, as well as “developing the next generation of scientists who will create the qubits of tomorrow”.
In the same way, Sandia National Laboratories has valued the possibility of using the Tunnel Falls chip. “The device is a flexible platform that allows Sandia quantum researchers to directly compare different qubit encodings and develop new modes of operation of qubits, which was not possible before,” said Dwight Luhman, Ph.D. and technical team member.
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