Intel enters the quantum realm: Tunnel Falls 12-qubit quantum chip and all the details

The other day, Intel announced the availability of its first quantum processor called Tunnel Falls. Intel calls it a “development chip”. As such, it will not be for sale, but will be made available to select academic and research partners who want to build quantum systems using the chips and provide feedback to Intel for future development.

Intel stepped into the quantum realm

Intel says quantum computing won’t make significant achievements until the industry reaches thousands of qubits, and won’t be commercially viable until the industry reaches millions of qubits. However, others think that quantum can generate value even sooner. Whether quantum computing is a viable solution in a few years or a decade, we can say that it will be a critical information technology for the future.

Quantum technology is still in the research phase and different approaches are being adopted to enable quantum computing. Intel is focusing on the use of silicon quantum dots, or what the company calls silicon spin qubits. This technology relies on CMOS semiconductor manufacturing technology, one of Intel’s core competencies, to isolate individual electrons and determine their spin-up or spin-down. The technology is therefore scalable with the semiconductor process and packaging technology.

Intel’s first quantum processor released

Although Tunnel Falls is the first quantum processor Intel released, the company has been working on the processor, software, and even manufacturing technology for more than seven years.

Intel has dedicated a pilot line for production at its D1 technology development plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. In addition, Intel has developed a cryo-prober that can test chips at 1.6 Kelvin (-271 degrees), slightly above the near-zero Kelvin temperature required for the chips to function. It takes about 24 hours to test a plate, including cooling and probing time, according to the company. While this is very slow in terms of semiconductor processing, it represents a great achievement for a challenging new technology. In addition, Intel says it has achieved about 95 percent efficiency on the plate in terms of working qubit chips. This is a surprising yield for a new process technology with such extreme operational parameters.

As part of the system, Intel also developed the Horse Ridge II control chip, which operates at 4 Kelvin (-269 degrees) in the cooling unit. In addition, Intel has released a software development kit (SDK) to support quantum chips.

The US military has support

Intel is collaborating with the University of Maryland, College Parks Qubit Collaboratory (LQC) Physical Sciences Laboratory (LPS). This collaboration is part of LQC’s Qubits for Computing Foundry (QCF) program through the US Army Research Office. The first labs to receive the Tunnel Falls processor were announced as LPS, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Rochester, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

biggest challenge

One of the biggest challenges in quantum systems is electrical connection, you can think of it like electrical wiring.

Each qubit is individually connected to the control chip. However, Intel noted that future versions could share links between qubits, integrate the control chip into the same package, or take another new approach. Intel stated that a successor to Tunnel Falls is already in development, but declined to provide a roadmap for future products. Intel also stated that it is in the early stages of developing quantum error correction technology, which is a requirement as the number of qubits increases. In quantum processors, as the number of qubits increases, the error rates increase due to their structure. You can go to our news here to get information about it.

From a development perspective, Intel is a part of others in the quantum segment, notably IBM Research, which has its own quantum data center and other systems installed around the world, which will introduce a 1,000-qubit system later this year, and has developed a new error mitigation technique with promising results. seems to be a step behind. You can read IBM’s related news from the link above. As a result, it seems that we will witness a quantum race in a very short time, just like in artificial intelligence.