Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Sydney in Australia are currently working on developing their own quantum computing system that uses CMOS-based silicon chips.
Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is already used to create a number of different computer components and for this reason, scientists developing quantum computers are trying to use this familiar approach instead of liquid-state nuclear-magnetic-resonance or ion traps.
While the notion of a silicon-based quantum computer was first put forth by researcher Bruce Kane back in 1998 in a paper, scientists are just now coming up ways to turn his idea into a reality. One of the biggest hurdles they've had to overcome is the fact that CMOS components generally put off more heat and interfere with quantum bits or qubits.
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Keeping qubits cool requires them to be refrigerated at near-zero Kelvin temperatures which is why the quantum computers developed by IBM and Honeywell currently have lower qubit counts. To build a quantum computer with hundreds to thousands of qubits, this problem will need to be solved and it appears that Microsoft is on its way to coming up with a solution.
Gooseberry
Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Sydney recently published a paper in Nature Electronics detailing how they've developed a chip that can support thousands of qubits called Gooseberry.
General manager of quantum hardware at Microsoft Chetan Nayak explained in a blog post how the team headed by Dr. David Reilly has devised a way to overcome quantum computing's cooling problem, saying:
“The chip powering this platform, called Gooseberry, resolves several issues with I/O in quantum computers by operating at 100 milliKelvin (mK) while dissipating sufficiently low power so that it does not exceed the cooling power of a standard commercially-available research refrigerator at these temperatures. This sidesteps the otherwise insurmountable challenge of running thousands of wires into a fridge.”
At the same time, the researchers have also come up with a cryo-compute core that sits above Gooseberry in the quantum stack in order to relay information from the quantum layer. This core is a general-purpose CPU that has been designed to operate at a higher temperature of 2 K as opposed to 100 mK.
Both Gooseberry and its cryo-compute core are still in the development stage but we'll likely hear more from Microsoft once the company actually begins making them.
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Via The Register
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