QUDOOR released the first China's ARTIQ architecture quantum computing measurement and control system
On March 28, QUDOOR announced that it has made significant technological progress in the engineering research and development of ion trap quantum computers, and released the first China's ARTIQ architecture quantum measurement and control system (QuSoil) with independent intellectual property rights.
The first batch of customized products in the open market include: "Logic Gate Instruction Compilation Module", "FPGA Central Processing Module", "Lower Function Components" ("Digital Pulse I/O Module" and "Digital Frequency Synthesis Module"). These modules have been integrated with the AbaQ (Tian Shou No. 1) 100-bit ion trap quantum computer, which is bound to greatly speed up the engineering and commercialization process of QUDOOR distributed ion trap quantum computer.
QUDOOR also announced that "digital-analog conversion module", "analog-to-digital conversion module", "arbitrary waveform generation module", "microwave signal generation module", "RF power amplifier module", "chip well interface module" and other components also It has entered the project finalization stage, and will be open to market customization at the end of the year.
Quantum Computing Measurement and Control System
As an emerging technology that breaks Moore's Law and achieves exponential growth in computing power, quantum computing is becoming the focus of competition among major countries around the world. The quantum bit is the basic information unit of a quantum computer, and the classical photoelectric control system is an interface that connects the real classical information system and the quantum bit system. The quantum bit works at the back end of the classical photoelectric control system. The relationship between the two is like an aero-engine and flight The control system, the latter guides the direction of the former and escorts it. The quantum measurement and control system with photoelectric measurement and control as the core is one of the core devices of quantum computers, and it is an important guarantee for the stable operation of quantum computing processors.
Among the many schemes for realizing quantum measurement and control systems, ARTIQ (Advanced Real-Time Infrastructure for Quantum physics) stands out, which can be used for cutting-edge control and data acquisition systems for quantum information experiments. The ARTIQ architecture is currently the most advanced and widely used quantum measurement and control system in the world. It has been deployed in the laboratories of famous universities and quantum physics research institutions such as Duke, Maryland, MIT, Oxford, and Harvard. It is also used by the Sandia National Experiment in the United States. The chamber serves as the basic architecture of the quantum measurement and control system.
The ARTIQ system was originally developed by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Ion Storage research group, led by renowned atomic physicist Dave Wineland, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. His series of scientific achievements in atomic physics research include: precise measurement of electron spin g-factor using ion traps (Nobel Prize), the first realization of laser Doppler cooling, and the first realization of the first using ion traps CNOT logic gate. Using the ARTIQ architecture, NIST's quantum physics research group not only controls the world's most accurate atomic clock, but also keeps the world's highest quantum volume (>1 million) quantum computer running.
Through the release of the ARTIQ system, QUDOOR has proposed five basic standards (that is, five challenges) for a universal quantum computer measurement and control system:
● Ability to receive and generate at least hundreds of digital and analog signals with extremely precise timing and ensure phase coherence;
● Measurement and control in quantum error correction schemes can be accomplished with very low response delays;
● Ability to handle quantum logic gate protocols with complex structures and realize general quantum algorithms;
● It can meet the needs of flexible deployment and programmability, and adapt to constantly improving experimental hardware;
● Can meet the diverse demands of hardware, drivers and data analysis software to adapt to distributed and multi-platform environments.
In order to meet these five challenges, it is an inevitable choice to develop an efficient, stable, easy-to-control, and reliable quantum computing measurement and control system. At present, the quantum measurement and control system presents a situation of parallel development of multiple schools, including ion traps, neutral atoms, superconductors, and semiconductors. However, most measurement and control systems can only use a single technology and cannot achieve "cross-border" research and development, which will obviously lengthen the research time and increase the cost investment. Therefore, the research and development of a common platform architecture is one of the focuses of the industry. ARTIQ measurement and control system is currently the only system that is expected to establish a general platform framework.
ARTIQ is provided as an open source solution to the global research community and is currently maintained on GitHub by organizations such as M-Labs, QUARTIQ, NIST, and others. More than 100 laboratories around the world have adopted ARTIQ as their control system. ARTIQ measurement and control system is not only used for atomic quantum computers such as ion traps and Rydberg atoms, but also rapidly expands to quantum computer systems such as superconducting quantum and silicon-based quantum dots, as well as cold atom quantum gyroscopes, gravity gradiometers, and quantum magnetometers. Isometric sensing system.
The industry generally believes that the ARTIQ architecture will become an important candidate for the next-generation quantum network basic physical measurement and control system integrating communication, computing, and sensing. However, the current market supply of ARTIQ hardware is monopolized by M-Labs and QUARTIQ, and China's companies are still blank in terms of related intellectual property rights and copyrights. In the future, if there is uncertainty in the international cooperation of quantum computing, it will seriously hinder China's institutions from using the ARTIQ architecture to develop quantum measurement and control systems.
In 2017, the chief scientist of QUDOOR and Professor Luo Le of Sun Yat-Sen University initiated and organized the first Asia-Pacific Conference on Imprisoned Quantum Systems, and proposed to develop a China's quantum measurement and control system with completely independent intellectual property rights based on the ARTIQ open source architecture. The conference invited M-Labs CEO Sebastien Bourdeauduqq to give an in-depth introduction to the ARTIQ architecture. Since then, Sun Yat-sen University, Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Institute of Precision Measurement of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, Beihang Instrument and other units have adopted the ARTIQ architecture as the quantum measurement and control system.
QuSoil: Filling the gap of China's ARTIQ measurement and control system
QuSoil, also known as Quantum Soil, is an ARTIQ architecture quantum measurement and control system developed by QUDOOR. QUDOOR will first apply it to the AbaQ 100-bit ion trap universal quantum computer under development. It will connect to the QuRoot (quantum root stem) developed by QUDOOR : Universal Quantum Services Driver Library) and all optoelectronic devices in ion trap quantum computers. The purpose of establishing this system is to break the monopoly of foreign companies and develop a quantum measurement and control system with China's independent intellectual property rights. Simply put, the relationship between QuSoil and the ARTIQ architecture is like the Galaxy Kirin and the Linux operating system.
The design of QuSoil has high portability, multi-system compatibility and upgrade scalability, which ensures the stability of the system when it runs on non-real-time devices. QuSoil's human-computer interface provides a graphical user interface, an experiment scheduling system, and a database for experiments, equipment, parameters, and results. The technologies involved are Python, Migen, MiSoC/mor1kx, LLVM, and Llvmlite. The three major measurement and control modules released this time, the logic gate instruction compilation module, the FPGA central processing module and the lower-level functional components, not only realize the interaction and cooperation, but also ensure that "each performs its own duties" and creates a highly reliable, high-efficiency and high-speed measurement and control module. system. At the same time, QuSoil also has a very high cost performance, and the estimated selling price of hardware with the same technical parameters will be greatly lower than that of foreign companies.
If the ion trap chip is the "brain" of a quantum computer, then QuSoil is the "nerve" of a quantum computer. For the research and development of quantum computers in the past and today, the chip and measurement and control system are mainly in the leading position in the United States, which is quite It is undoubtedly a very fatal thing to hand over your "brain" and "nerve" to others, so QuSoil shoulders an extremely important mission in the research and development process of QUDOOR.
The QuSoil system jointly tackled by QUDOOR and Sun Yat-Sen University can meet the research and development needs of quantum computing by itself, universities and scientific research institutions, indicating that China's enterprises have mastered the core intellectual property rights of quantum measurement and control based on the ARTIQ architecture, filling the China's ARTIQ measurement and control. The technical and product gaps of the system. The QuSoil system has given my country's self-controllable quantum computer measurement and control system a "stimulant", which has greatly enhanced the voice of Chinese quantum companies in the international market competition. The commercialization of Qike's QuSoil measurement and control system will greatly promote the research and development of quantum technology in related fields in China, and is of great strategic significance to the demand for quantum measurement and control technology in the fields of national defense, military and national security.
Three modules of QuSoil
At present, the QuSoil measurement and control system includes three modules: logic gate instruction compilation module, FPGA central processing module and lower-level functional components. The following figure shows the QuSoil system architecture block diagram.
QuSoil System Architecture Block Diagram
Module 1: Logic gate instruction compilation module
The logic gate instruction compilation module is the main control center of the ARTIQ measurement and control system, which is equivalent to the brain of the measurement and control system. Whether the measurement and control system can run orderly and efficiently depends entirely on whether the logic gate instruction compilation is reasonable and accurate. The function of the logic gate instruction compilation module includes not only the control of the underlying hardware of the quantum computer, but also the connection with the application algorithm layer. Therefore, the logic gate instruction compilation module can meet the needs of different operation objects at the same time. The demand point of quantum experimenters is to be able to flexibly configure the signals and timing of the underlying hardware to meet their experimental demands; while quantum programmers are not interested in the underlying logic of the hardware, and need to configure the underlying hardware parameters in advance, directly through the dedicated API. transfer.
The completely independent and controllable research and development of the logic gate instruction compilation module enables QUDOOR to customize the design and configuration according to the needs of users. At the same time, QUDOOR has realized the iterative optimization of the underlying hardware parameters of the logic gate instruction compilation module, which ensures the continuous support of the evolving hardware function demands.
Module 2: FPGA central processing module
The FPGA central processing module is a bridge between the logic gate instruction compilation module and the lower functional components. Its main function is to read the hardware timing signals transmitted by the logic gate instruction compilation module and identify and process them, and then according to the strict processing requirements of the timing sequence, at a specific moment. Control several function boards for electrical signal output. The FPGA central processing module supports the DRTIO (Distributed Real Time Input/Output, distributed real-time input/output) protocol, which ensures the ns (nanosecond) level synchronization accuracy between the logic gate instruction compilation modules, allowing multiple FPGA central processing It is possible for the modules to work together and the lower functional components to be added or removed at will according to the needs. This is one of the reasons why QUDOOR chose FPGA as the hardware command center of the measurement and control system.
In practical applications, the FPGA central processing module can provide more choices for R&D customers, such as the development of lower-level function boards with special functions, customers can cooperate with QUDOOR to customize the board into the experimental control system. middle.
Module 3: The lower functional components "digital pulse I/O module" and "digital frequency synthesis module"
The main function of the lower functional components is to accept the control instructions of the FPGA central processing module and output specific types of electrical signals. As the bottom-level hardware of the measurement and control system, different application fields require the measurement and control system to have different functions. The functions that need to be realized in the ion trap quantum computer include "digital pulse I/O module" (TTL), "digital frequency synthesis module" (DDS). ), "analog-to-digital conversion module" (ADC), "digital-to-analog conversion module" (DAC), GHz microwave source module, "arbitrary waveform generation module" (AWG), "RF power amplifier module", "chip well interface module" "And so on.
Among the lower-level functional components released this time, DDS plays a pivotal role in the ion trap quantum computer, and its signal quality will directly affect whether the quantum logic gate operation can be realized. The main function of the TTL board is to realize fast on-off operation, which is convenient for the experimenter to carry out thousands of experiments in a short time. At the same time, the coherence time of qubits is limited, and all logic gate operations need to be completed quickly in a short time, so TTL for fast on-off operation is indispensable. In addition, TTL can be used as an input port for probing the state of qubits.
In the future, QUDOOR will successively release hardware such as ADC, DAC, microwave source, and AWG through the board and integration of lower-level functional components. The increasingly sound lower-level functional components will lay a solid foundation for the research and development of QUDOOR Distributed Ion Trap Quantum Computers.
