Zurich Instruments unveils products for high-fidelity qubit control

It enables increased high-fidelity qubit control, and the new feature has already been tested at leading quantum labs. This allows for even more reliable manipulation of fragile quantum states, and thus enables running more powerful algorithms.

This is yet another important step toward the endgame: building a useful quantum computer.

This March, Zurich Instruments launches the newest system for control and readout of superconducting qubits, including a full measurement software framework: the SHFSG+ Signal Generator, SHFQC+ Qubit Controller, and SHFQA+ Quantum Analyzer.

Designed to the limits of analogue performance, the SHF+ product line unites high-fidelity qubit control and quality performance, and accelerates the development of longer coherence time qubits and scaling up QPUs.

The SHFSG+, SHFQC+, and SHFQA+ improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by 10 dB, placing them among the highest available on the market.

Such a high SNR dramatically reduces thermal qubit excitation and, in turn, maximizes quantum computing algorithm fidelity. A substantially improved phase noise allows for suppressing phase errors in the control of long-lived qubits.

“By working closely with many leading quantum computing research groups, we’ve observed that the setup allows for reduction of the phase error limit up to ten times and reaches levels of 10-6 for qubits in the millisecond lifetime range”, says Dr. Bruno Küng, principal product marketing manager at Zurich Instruments.

In addition to a noise-optimized signal chain, the SHF+ products also offer the ability to actively mute the output for measurements on even the most sensitive of qubits.

“The new SHFSG+, SHFQC+ and SHFQA+ are the result of collaborations across the globe to provide the highest quality control electronics to the very people who are making great improvements in qubit quality - gate fidelity, lifetime, coherence - day by day. And we seal it all with the Swiss cross for quality”, says Dr. Mark Kasperczyk, senior product manager at Zurich Instruments.

“Strong connections to research have allowed us to stay on the frontiers of science, as well as to scale our operations in a sustainable way. We thank our R&D teams for developing the SHF+ line, and to institutes such as ETH Zurich and many others for performing validations. This is a step towards more computational quantum power: better and longer quantum circuits, even for a few qubits, and the use of larger chips for more powerful QPUs. The story goes on - towards 4 9s and hundreds of qubits to accelerate the second quantum revolution”, concludes Dr. Sadik Hafizovic, the CEO of Zurich Instruments.

The SHFQC+, SHFSG+ and SHFQA+ will be launched at the meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), in Minneapolis (March 4-8)