Important milestone in quantum chip manufacturing with the transistor manufacturing process: Intel Labs and Components Research achieved the largest production yield ever in the manufacture of silicon spin qubit devices at the Gordon Moore Park research and development center in Hillsboro, United States. The research, the results of which were presented at Silicon Quantum Electronics Workshop 2022 in Orford, Québec, was conducted using Intel’s second-generation test spin chips. Thanks to the Intel cryoprober, a device for testing quantum dots that operates at cryogenic temperatures (1.7 Kelvin or -271.45 degrees Celsius), the team of researchers isolated 12 quantum dots and four sensors. It is the largest silicon electron spin device ever made, with a single electron at each location within an entire 300mm silicon wafer. Today, spin qubits mostly occur on a single device, while research conducted by Intel shows that this is possible on an entire wafer. Manufactured using Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the chips exhibit remarkable uniformity with a 95% throughput rate on wafer. The use of cryoprober, combined with robust software automation, has allowed the realization of more than 900 single quantum dots and more than 400 double dots on the last electron, which can be characterized to one degree above absolute zero in less than 24 hours.
The higher yield and consistency in devices characterized at low temperatures over previous test chips allows for the use of statistical process control to identify which areas of the manufacturing process are to be optimized. This accelerates learning and represents a critical step in moving closer to producing the thousands or potentially millions of qubits that are required to make a commercial quantum computer. In addition, the full wafer yield enabled Intel to automate data collection across the wafer in the single electron regime, leading to the largest single and double quantum dot demonstration ever. “Intel continues to make progress in making silicon spin qubits manufactured using its own transistor manufacturing technology,” said James Clarke, director of Quantum Hardware at Intel. “The high throughput and consistency achieved shows that fabricating quantum chips using proven transistor process node technology is a viable strategy and an important indicator of success in moving towards commercialization. In the future we will continue to improve the quality of these devices and develop systems on a larger scale ”.
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