Windows 10: Intel Introduces Horse Ridge for Commercially Viable Quantum Computers

Brink · Dec 9, 2019

Stefano Pellerano, principal engineer at Intel Labs, holds Horse Ridge. The new cryogenic control chip will speed development of full-stack quantum computing systems, marking a milestone in the development of a commercially viable quantum computer. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

What’s New: Intel Labs today unveiled what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind cryogenic control chip — code-named “Horse Ridge” — that will speed up development of full-stack quantum computing systems. Horse Ridge will enable control of multiple quantum bits (qubits) and set a clear path toward scaling larger systems — a major milestone on the path to quantum practicality. Developed together with Intel’s research collaborators at QuTech, a partnership between TU Delft and TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research), Horse Ridge is fabricated using Intel’s 22nm FinFET technology. In-house fabrication of these control chips at Intel will dramatically accelerate the company’s ability to design, test and optimize a commercially viable quantum computer.
“While there has been a lot of emphasis on the qubits themselves, the ability to control many qubits at the same time had been a challenge for the industry. Intel recognized that quantum controls were an essential piece of the puzzle we needed to solve in order to develop a large-scale commercial quantum system. That’s why we are investing in quantum error correction and controls. With Horse Ridge, Intel has developed a scalable control system that will allow us to significantly speed up testing and realize the potential of quantum computing.”
–Jim Clarke, Intel’s director of Quantum Hardware
Why It Matters: In the race to realize the power and potential of quantum computers, researchers have focused extensively on qubit fabrication, building test chips that demonstrate the exponential power of a small number of qubits operating in superposition. However, in early quantum hardware developments — including design, testing and characterization of Intel’s silicon spin qubit and superconducting qubit systems — Intel identified a major bottleneck toward realizing commercial-scale quantum computing: interconnects and control electronics.

With Horse Ridge, Intel introduces an elegant solution that will enable the company to control multiple qubits and set a clear path toward scaling future systems to larger qubit counts — a major milestone on the path to quantum practicality.

What Quantum Practicality is: Quantum computers promise the potential to tackle problems that conventional computers can’t handle by leveraging a phenomena of quantum physics that allows qubits to exist in multiple states simultaneously. As a result, qubits can conduct a large number of calculations at the same time — dramatically speeding up complex problem-solving.

The quantum research community is still at mile one of a marathon toward demonstrating quantum practicality, a benchmark against which the quantum research community can determine whether a quantum system can deliver game-changing performance to solve real-world problems. Intel´s investment in quantum computing covers the full hardware and software stack in pursuit of the development and commercialization of a practical, commercially viable quantum system.

Why Horse Ridge is Important: To date, researchers have been focused on building small-scale quantum systems to demonstrate the potential of quantum devices. In these efforts, researchers have relied on existing electronic tools and high-performance computing rack-scale instruments to connect the quantum system inside the cryogenic refrigerator to the traditional computational devices regulating qubit performance and programming the system.

These devices are often custom-designed to control individual qubits, requiring hundreds of connective wires into and out of the refrigerator in order to control the quantum processor. This extensive control cabling for each qubit will hinder the ability to scale the quantum system to the hundreds or thousands of qubits required to demonstrate quantum practicality, not to mention the millions of qubits required for a commercially viable quantum solution.

With Horse Ridge, Intel radically simplifies the control electronics required to operate a quantum system. Replacing these bulky instruments with a highly-integrated system-on-chip (SoC) will simplify system design and allow for sophisticated signal processing techniques to accelerate set-up time, improve qubit performance and enable the system to efficiently scale to larger qubit counts.

More About Horse Ridge: Horse Ridge is a highly integrated, mixed-signal SoC that brings the qubit controls into the quantum refrigerator — as close as possible to the qubits themselves. It effectively reduces the complexity of quantum control engineering from hundreds of cables running into and out of a refrigerator to a single, unified package operating near the quantum device.

Designed to act as a radio frequency (RF) processor to control the qubits operating in the refrigerator, Horse Ridge is programmed with instructions that correspond to basic qubit operations. It translates those instructions into electromagnetic microwave pulses that can manipulate the state of the qubits.

Named for one of the coldest regions in Oregon, the Horse Ridge control chip was designed to operate at cryogenic temperatures — approximately 4 Kelvin. To put this in context, 4 Kelvin is only warmer than absolute zero — a temperature so cold that atoms nearly stop moving.

This feat is particularly exciting as Intel progresses its research into silicon spin qubits, which have the potential to operate at slightly higher temperatures than current quantum systems require.

Today, a quantum computer operates at in the millikelvin range — just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. But silicon spin qubits have properties that could allow them to operate at 1 Kelvin or higher temperatures, which would dramatically reduce the challenges of refrigerating the quantum system.

As research progresses, Intel aims to have cryogenic controls and silicon spin qubits operate at the same temperature level. This will enable the company to leverage its expertise in advanced packaging and interconnect technologies to create a solution with the qubits and controls in one streamlined package.

More Context: What It Will Take to Make Quantum Computers Practical (Jim Clarke Editorial) | Quantum Computing (Press Kit) | Intel Labs (Press Kit) | QuTech
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Source: Intel Introduces ‘Horse Ridge’ to Enable Commercially Viable Quantum Computers | Intel Newsroom

:)

Raevenlord · Dec 9, 2019

The Future of Quantum Computing is Counted in Qubits

At CES 2018 in January, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich predicted that quantum computing will solve problems that today take months or years for our most powerful supercomputers to resolve. Krzanich then unveiled Intel's 49-qubit superconducting quantum test chip, code-named "Tangle Lake."

Quantum computing is heralded for its potential. Leaders in scientific and industrial fields are hopeful quantum computing will speed advances in chemistry, drug development, financial modeling and climate change.

Quantum computations use quantum bits (qubits), which can be in multiple states at the same time - quite different from digital computing's requirement that data be either in one state or another (0 or 1, for example). Running a large number of calculations in parallel opens a future where complex problems can be solved in much less time on a quantum computer compared with a traditional digital device.

But while quantum computing has great potential, the field is in its infancy. And it will take many generations of qubit increases for quantum computers to begin solving the world's challenges.

"In the quest to deliver a commercially viable quantum computing system, it's anyone's game," said Mike Mayberry, corporate vice president and managing director of Intel Labs. "We expect it will be five to seven years before the industry gets to tackling engineering-scale problems, and it will likely require 1 million or more qubits to achieve commercial relevance."

A small step in the quantum computing journey, the 3-inch-square Tangle Lake test chip is already in testing with Intel's quantum research partner QuTech in the Netherlands.

Brink · Dec 9, 2019

Intel Sees Promise of Silicon Spin Qubits for Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is heralded for its potential to tackle problems that today’s conventional computers can’t handle. Scientists and industries are looking to quantum computing to speed advancements in areas like chemistry or drug development, financial modeling, and even climate forecasting.

To deliver on quantum computing’s potential, Intel initiated a collaborative research program in 2015 with the goal of developing a commercially viable quantum computing system.

Press Kit: Quantum Computing

While there’s been significant progress, quantum computing research is still nascent. The industry is at mile one in a marathon, and to realize this new computing paradigm, many problems must be solved and many architectural decisions must be made. For example, it’s not yet clear what form quantum processors (or “qubits”) will take. That’s why Intel is placing two major research bets and investing in them equally.

One possible form is superconducting qubits. Intel is making fast progress in developing this type of test chip, which others in the industry and academia are also pursuing. Additionally, Intel is researching an alternative structure, which draws on the company’s world-class expertise manufacturing silicon transistors. This alternative architecture is called “spin qubits,” which operate in silicon and could help overcome some of the scientific hurdles to take quantum computing from research to reality.

What is a spin qubit?

Spin qubits highly resemble the semiconductor electronics and transistors as we know them today. They deliver their quantum power by leveraging the spin of a single electron on a silicon device and controlling the movement with tiny, microwave pulses.

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Electrons can spin in different directions. When the electron spins up, the data signifies the binary value 1. When the electron spins down, the data signifies the binary value 0. But, similar to how superconducting qubits operate, these electrons can also exist in a “superposition,” which means they have the probability of a spin that’s up and down at the same time and, in doing so, they can theoretically process tremendous sets of data in parallel, much faster than a classical computer.

Why research spin qubits?

Among the challenges researchers must overcome before quantum computing can become a commercial reality, is the incredibly fragile nature of qubits. Any noise or unintended observation of them can cause data loss. This fragility requires them to operate at extremely cold temperatures, which creates challenges for the material design of the chips themselves and the control electronics necessary to make them work. Superconducting qubits are quite large and they operate in systems the size of 55-gallon drums, which makes it hard to scale up the design of the quantum system to the millions of qubits necessary to create a truly useful commercial system.

Spin qubits, in comparison to their superconducting counterparts, offer a few advantages in addressing these challenges.
They’re small and strong: Spin qubits are much smaller in physical size and their coherence time is expected to be longer – an advantage as researchers aim to scale the system to the millions of qubits that will be required for a commercial system.

They can function at higher temperatures: Silicon spin qubits can operate at higher temperatures than superconducting qubits (1 kelvin as opposed to 20 millikelvin). This could drastically reduce the complexity of the system required to operate the chips by allowing the integration of control electronics much closer to the processor. Intel and academic research partner QuTech* are exploring higher temperature operation of spin qubits with interesting results up to 1K (or 50x warmer) than superconducting qubits. The team is planning to share the results at the American Physical Society (APS) meeting in March.

Intel manufacturing know-how: The design of the spin qubit processors highly resembles the traditional silicon transistor technologies. While there are key scientific and engineering challenges remaining to scale this technology, Intel has the equipment and infrastructure from decades of fabricating transistors at scale.
What is the status of spin qubits research?

This week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, QuTech, will present on its success creating a two-qubit spin-based quantum computer that can be programmed to perform two simple quantum algorithms. This development paves the way to larger spin-based processors capable of more complex applications. You can read more in a related Nature article, which published today.

And, Intel has invented a spin qubit fabrication flow on its 300 mm process technology using isotopically pure wafers sourced specifically for the production of spin-qubit test chips. Fabricated in the same facility as Intel’s advanced transistor technologies, Intel is now testing the initial wafers. Within a couple of months, Intel expects to be producing many wafers per week, each with thousands of small qubit arrays.

Going forward, Intel and QuTech will continue research on both superconducting and spin qubits across the entire quantum system – or “stack” – from qubit devices to the hardware and software architecture required to control these devices as well as quantum applications. All of these elements are essential to advancing quantum computing from research to reality.
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Source: https://newsroom.intel.com/news/inte...tum-computing/

Brink · Dec 9, 2019

Intel Starts Testing Smallest ‘Spin Qubit’ Chip for Quantum Computing

Intel researchers are taking new steps toward quantum computers by testing a tiny new “spin qubit” chip. The new chip was created in Intel’s D1D Fab in Oregon using the same silicon manufacturing techniques that the company has perfected for creating billions of traditional computer chips. Smaller than a pencil’s eraser, it is the tiniest quantum computing chip Intel has made.

The new spin qubit chip runs at the extremely low temperatures required for quantum computing: roughly 460 degrees below zero Fahrenheit – 250 times colder than space.

The spin qubit chip does not contain transistors – the on/off switches that form the basis of today’s computing devices – but qubits (short for “quantum bits”) that can hold a single electron. The behavior of that single electron, which can be in multiple spin states simultaneously, offers vastly greater computing power than today’s transistors, and is the basis of quantum computing.

The zigzag lines in the photo are printed wires connecting the chip’s qubits to the outside world.

One feature of Intel’s tiny new spin qubit chip is especially promising. Its qubits are extraordinarily small – about 50 nanometers across and visible only under an electron microscope. About 1,500 qubits could fit across the diameter of a single human hair.

This means the design for new Intel spin qubit chip could be dramatically scaled up. Future quantum computers will contain thousands or even millions of qubits — and will be vastly more powerful than today’s fastest supercomputers.

More: Quantum Computing at Intel | The Future of Quantum Computing is Counted in Qubits (Intel Explainer) | All Intel Images

A 2018 photo shows Intel’s new quantum computing chip balanced on a pencil eraser. Researchers started testing this “spin qubit chip” at the extremely low temperatures necessary for quantum computing: about 460 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Intel projects that qubit-based quantum computers, which operate based on the behaviors of single electrons, could someday be more powerful than today’s supercomputers. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)
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Source: https://newsroom.intel.com/news/inte...tum-computing/

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Windows 10: Intel Introduces Horse Ridge for Commercially Viable Quantum Computers

Intel Introduces Horse Ridge for Commercially Viable Quantum Computers

Intel Introduces Horse Ridge for Commercially Viable Quantum Computers

Intel Introduces Horse Ridge for Commercially Viable Quantum Computers

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