Lågbrusförstärkare för kvantdberäkning

Purpose and goal

Quantum computers are a rapidly growing area of research and development. A key component is the low noise amplifier (LNA). In order to scale up computers and improve performance, LNAs need to improve their performance and reduce power consumption. The project has studied different solutions to achieve this. Among other things, we have studied changes in the epitaxial structure of the transistors we use. The project has led to a world record in both low noise and power consumption for cryo LNAs.

Expected results and effects

The project has led to an improvement in performance that is already in production since the beginning of 2020. The world record performance we achieved in the project is not a one-time event but a stable performance improvement. Since the introduction of the new generation, production has increased by 60%. We are currently evaluating a second generation wafer with integrated circuits based on what we learned in the project. Overall, we are very pleased with the outcome of the project.

Planned approach and implementation

The project began with simulations of the structure of the semiconductor material to find candidates to achieve our performance objective. Subsequently, these candidates were processed to produce individual transistor chips that can be evaluated partly by measurements directly on the transistors and as components of an LNA designed for quantum computers. In the next step, the new material has been used in our MMIC process, where we have just produced the second generation of MMIC since the start of the project.