More Thoughts on Quantum Computing Through Silicon Chips
How Silicon Quantum Chips can Accelerate the Fabrication of Quantum Computers on a Massive Scale
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+ Currently, quantum computer development is still in its early stages. Several hardware technologies are available, however, none are dominating the “young” field, yet. The most advanced prototypes of quantum computers have been made by either trapping ions in a vacuum chamber or superconducting circuits, which are kept at a near absolute zero temperature. The biggest challenge with assembling the computers is scaling up the small models into larger, interconnected qubit systems and the technology which might allow for this to happen is the silicon transistor — the basic device used in all microprocessors and memory chips.
A team of researchers from the UK and France have demonstrated that it may be possible to build a quantum computer by using standard silicon-based electronic components. If possible, large-scale manufacturing of quantum computers can occur much sooner than predicted.
+ Due to Moore’s Law, silicon devices have been miniaturised over the years to become only a few tens of atoms wide, which is the scale that triggers the laws of quantum physics. However, there is a physical limit that is halting any further miniaturisation of silicon transistors. Nevertheless, new uses of silicon technology are providing the possibility of encoding a quantum bit of information into each silicon transistor and then using them to build quantum computers. By reusing the same technology used by the microchip industry for the past 60 years, costs for producing the silicon quantum bits can be reduced. Furthermore, current engineering and processing methods used in the development of modern microelectronics can be adapted to build powerful quantum processors.
+ The teams applied engineering solutions from conventional circuits to attach different quantum devices on a silicon chip. Additionally, they developed a circuit which operates at near absolute zero temperature and uses commercial transistors (some small enough to act as qubits). Their results suggest that the integration of conventional and quantum electronics can be the (currently) best available process to advance quantum computer production.
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