Superconducting Quantum Processor Design at Bleximo
by Chiara Pelletti, Fabio Sanches
Bleximo is the first company to bring an application-specific approach to the quantum computing industry. Within this framework, our Processor Design Team takes care of the development, optimization, and testing of superconducting packages, including the infrastructure surrounding the processor and the chip itself.
A qubit chip is housed in a superconducting package. The box and chip designs can both have unwanted resonances that can interfere with qubit operations. As the processor scales up to tackle the industry’s complex problems, the higher density of input lines can lead to greater microwave crosstalk between channels, and additional dissipative modes can appear in larger mounts. It thus becomes crucial to carefully engineer the mounting box in parallel with its contents.
Over the past two years, Bleximo’s processor team has focused on helping our clients and collaborators improve the performance of their Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and RF packages. This workflow begins with creating accurate electromagnetics models — including proper material modeling — and performing full-wave electromagnetic field simulations, from which we evaluate the performance of the design. We then use RF principles to improve current models or come up with entirely new architectures with superior performance. We also work closely with the fabrication team to achieve our expected performance.
To accomplish this, Bleximo brings together a wide range of expertise to the Processor Design Team. Our members include classical theoretical physicists, traditionally associated with the QC field. We also lean on the years of industry experience brought by our microwave and RF engineers.
After the infrastructure of the RF package is in place and optimized, the team continues to improve the RF performance of our test packages by using engineering principles to detune the resonance frequency of the modes from the qubit operating frequencies. Our efforts in package cross-talk reduction and spurious mode suppression have shown an improvement in coherence by a factor of 10.
On the chip side, our quantum chip optimization (QCO) tool provides automatic modeling and layout capabilities. This modeling effort integrates elements coming from the algorithm and testing teams to find the optimal configuration for a specific application and then accurately predicts the performance of the chip before it is fabricated, reducing the iterations required for each new hardware deployment.
Moving forward, we continue to enhance our system modeling capabilities by engineering advanced de-embedding strategies in the dilution refrigerator to accurately extract material properties and the response of on-chip filtering devices.
Our QCO software, along with our packaging optimization are critical components that support Bleximo’s application-specific hardware strategy. In addition to improving hardware performance, rapid prototyping allows close collaboration between algorithms development and hardware deployment.
If you’re interested in learning more about our processor capabilities, software, or our quantum computing solutions, reach out to us!
Contact:
Chiara Pelletti, chiara@bleximo.com
Fabio Sanches, fabio@bleximo.com
