Intel has announced the release of its new quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, and is making it available to the quantum research community. The company collaborates with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland, College Park’s Qubit Collaboratory (LQC) to advance quantum computing research. Tunnel Falls is Intel’s most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date and is part of the company’s long-term strategy to build a full-stack commercial quantum computing system. The chip measures approximately 50 nanometers square, potentially allowing for faster scaling. Intel is also working on its next-generation quantum chip based on Tunnel Falls, expected to be released in 2024.
Introduction
Intel has announced the release of its latest quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, and is making it available to the quantum research community. The chip is Intel’s most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date and aims to advance quantum computing research. Intel is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park’s Qubit Collaboratory, a national-level Quantum Information Sciences Research Center. The Tunnel Falls chip measures approximately 50-nanometers square, potentially allowing for faster scaling.
The company is making the chip available to the quantum research community to advance quantum computing research. Tunnel Falls is Intel’s most advanced silicon spin qubit chip, drawing on the company’s decades of transistor design and manufacturing expertise. The release of the new chip is part of Intel’s long-term strategy to build a full-stack commercial quantum computing system.
Collaboration with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland
Intel is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland, College Park’s Qubit Collaboratory (LQC), a national-level Quantum Information Sciences (QIS) Research Center. The collaboration aims to democratise silicon spin qubits by enabling researchers to gain hands-on experience working with scaled arrays of these qubits. This initiative will strengthen workforce development, open the doors to new quantum research, and grow the overall quantum ecosystem.
The first quantum labs to participate in the program include LPS, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Rochester, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. LQC will work alongside Intel to make Tunnel Falls available to additional universities and research labs. The information gathered from these experiments will be shared with the community to advance quantum research and help Intel improve qubit performance and scalability.
Advantages of Tunnel Falls for Researchers
Currently, academic institutions do not have high-volume manufacturing fabrication equipment like Intel. With Tunnel Falls, researchers can immediately begin working on experiments and research instead of trying to fabricate their own devices. This allows for a wider range of experiments, including learning more about the fundamentals of qubits and quantum dots, and developing new techniques for working with devices with multiple qubits.
More About Tunnel Falls
Tunnel Falls is Intel’s first silicon spin qubit device released to the research community. Fabricated on 300-millimeter wafers in the D1 fabrication facility, the 12-qubit device leverages Intel’s most advanced transistor industrial fabrication capabilities, such as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) and gate and contact processing techniques. In silicon spin qubits, information is encoded in the spin of a single electron. Each qubit device is essentially a single electron transistor, which allows Intel to fabricate it using a similar flow to that used in a standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) logic processing line.
Intel believes silicon spin qubits are superior to other qubit technologies because of their synergy with leading-edge transistors. They are up to 1 million times smaller than other qubit types, measuring approximately 50 nanometers by 50 nanometers, potentially allowing for efficient scaling. According to Nature Electronics, “Silicon may be the platform with the greatest potential to deliver scaled-up quantum computing.”
Future Plans for Quantum Computing at Intel
Intel will continuously work to improve the performance of Tunnel Falls and integrate it into its full quantum stack with the Intel Quantum Software Development Kit (SDK). In addition, Intel is already developing its next-generation quantum chip based on Tunnel Falls, which is expected to be released in 2024. In the future, Intel plans to partner with additional research institutions globally to build the quantum ecosystem.
“Tunnel Falls is Intel’s most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date and draws upon the company’s decades of transistor design and manufacturing expertise. The release of the new chip is the next step in Intel’s long-term strategy to build a full-stack commercial quantum computing system. While there are still fundamental questions and challenges that must be solved along the path to a fault-tolerant quantum computer, the academic community can now explore this technology and accelerate research development.”
Jim Clarke, director of Quantum Hardware, Intel
“The LPS Qubit Collaboratory, in partnership with the Army Research Office, seeks to tackle the hard challenges facing qubit development and develop the next generation of scientists who will create the qubits of tomorrow,” said Charles Tahan, chief of Quantum Information Science, LPS. “Intel’s participation is a major milestone to democratizing the exploration of spin qubits and their promise for quantum information processing and exemplifies LQC’s mission to bring industry, academia, national labs, and government together.”
Dr. Dwight Luhman, distinguished member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, said, “Sandia National Laboratories is excited to be a recipient of the Tunnel Falls chip. The device is a flexible platform enabling quantum researchers at Sandia to directly compare different qubit encodings and develop new qubit operation modes, which was not possible for us previously. This level of sophistication allows us to innovate novel quantum operations and algorithms in the multi-qubit regime and accelerate our learning rate in silicon-based quantum systems. The anticipated reliability of Tunnel Falls will also allow Sandia to rapidly onboard and train new staff working in silicon qubit technologies.“
Mark A. Eriksson, department chair and John Bardeen Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “UW-Madison researchers, with two decades of investment in the development of silicon qubits, are very excited to partner in the launch of the LQC. The opportunity for students to work with industrial devices, which benefit from Intel’s microelectronics expertise and infrastructure, opens important opportunities both for technical advances and for education and workforce development.”
Executive Summary
Intel has released its latest quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, to advance quantum computing research in collaboration with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland. The chip, which is up to 1 million times smaller than other qubit types, will be made available to university and federal research labs, enabling a wider range of experiments and accelerating research development.
- Intel has released its latest quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, and is making it available to the quantum research community.
- The company is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland, College Park’s Qubit Collaboratory (LQC) to advance quantum computing research.
- Tunnel Falls is Intel’s most advanced silicon spin qubit chip, drawing on the company’s expertise in transistor design and manufacturing.
- The chip measures approximately 50-nanometers square, potentially allowing for faster scaling.
- Intel is working with LQC as part of the Qubits for Computing Foundry (QCF) program to provide the new quantum chip to research laboratories.
- The first quantum labs to participate in the program include LPS, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of Rochester, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Intel believes silicon spin qubits are superior to other qubit technologies due to their synergy with leading-edge transistors and efficient scaling potential.
- The company is already developing its next-generation quantum chip based on Tunnel Falls, expected to be released in 2024.