What is the difference between quantum chips and ordinary chips?

Traditional chips are based on silicon, while quantum chips, in fact, quantum circuits are integrated on carbon-based materials to achieve information processing and computing. The most advanced silicon-based chips currently mass-produced are five-nanometer processes, and nanometers are billionths. One meter and 20 silicon atoms wide.

 

The so-called quantum chip is to integrate the quantum circuit on the substrate, and then carry the function of quantum information processing. Drawing on the development history of traditional computers, quantum computer research needs to take the road of integration in order to achieve commercialization and industrial upgrading after overcoming the bottleneck technology. Superconducting systems, semiconductor quantum dot systems, micro-nano photonics systems, and even atomic and ion systems all want to take the road of chipping.

Quantum computing, together with quantum communication and quantum measurement, is considered to be an important direction of quantum technology. Compared with today's fiery quantum communication and mysterious quantum measurement, quantum computing has become a cutting-edge technology field that major countries around the world are vying to lay out in recent years, relying on the imagination of computing power. At present, quantum computing is mainly divided into two types of quantum computing routes: solid-state devices (also called electrical routes) and optical routes. At present, the quantum computing of IBM and Google, which are widely reported by the media, is taking the route of superconducting quantum computing, while Intel is taking the route of semiconductor quantum technology. Both superconducting and semiconductors belong to the route of solid-state devices, and both belong to the route of electricity. As the core part of a quantum computer, a quantum chip is a hardware device that performs quantum computing and quantum information processing. However, since quantum computing follows the laws and properties of quantum mechanics, for traditional classical integrated circuit chips, there are certain differences in the requirements and implementation paths of quantum chips in terms of materials, processes, design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, etc.

 

A quantum chip is a new type of chip that is different from the traditional semiconductor-based chip. Unlike previous chips using semiconductor materials, the quantum effect basically overthrows the original method and starts from scratch, only borrowing from the original theory in terms of concepts and algorithms. Other aspects are different at the basic level. An analogy is like building a house with wood instead of building a building with reinforced concrete. Although they are all inhabited, their foundations are different. If the quantum chip is born, it will be the core of the future computer of the new CPU.

 

Semiconductor quantum chips can well combine and utilize modern mature semiconductor microelectronics manufacturing processes, and it is more flexible to prepare, manipulate and read qubits through purely electronic control. Similar to modern large-scale integrated circuits, semiconductor quantum chips have good scalability and integration characteristics, and are considered to be one of the best candidate systems for large-scale practical quantum computing in the future. The superconducting quantum chip has the following advantages: First, the number of operands is large, the coherence time of superconducting qubits is long, the operation speed is fast, and the fidelity is high, and thousands of operations can be realized overall. The second is that the technology is mature, compared with other solid-state quantum chip systems, superconducting qubits. It is less affected by material defects and utilizes mature nanofabrication technology. , can achieve mass production. The third is good scalability, superconducting qubit structure is simple, easy to control, and easy to expand.