SemiQon's Technology
Our Technology
At SemiQon, we are solving a problem everyone in the quantum business is desperate to solve: scaling up qubits in an affordable and sustainable way.
Our silicon-based quantum processors, or quantum integrated circuits, can be manufactured using affordable standard semiconductor manufacturing materials, tools, and methods.
We started SemiQon to build a technology that can overcome the biggest challenge slowing down the progress of the quantum industry: The scale-up of quantum computers. As we develop and design our technology, we do so with the million-qubit era in mind.
We build processors to power the next era of quantum computing, but while doing so, we are solving engineering challenges that will benefit the industry as a whole. We aren’t afraid to say that we don’t aim for one-of-a-kind. Our goal is to build productized and affordable high-quality silicon-based processors that can power the scale-up of quantum computing globally, not one single piece of exceptional hardware.
Silicon-based quantum chips, an approach that makes sense
Silicon has many recognized properties, and to an extent, many of those also apply for quantum systems. From the get-go, we knew that using silicon for our quantum chips would allow us to sidestep many of the challenges faced by other modalities and offer technological advantages over alternative approaches.
We have a crisp focus on building technology meant for cryogenic use. By specializing in designing and fabricating quantum-optimized CMOS devices, we have been able to create valuable intellectual property and to develop technological solutions that can benefit also others working on different modalities. Our semiconductor-based quantum processing units with integrated quantum-dot qubits and cryogenic ultra-low dissipation CMOS hardware make it possible.
Our quantum chips are 100 times more densely packed and operated at 100 times higher temperature than competing modalities, and they can be manufactured using affordable standard semiconductor manufacturing materials, tools and methods.
The requirement of operating Si QD-based spin qubits at temperatures of about a few kelvins and below to preserve fragile quantum information encoded into spins prevents using the room temperature high-throughput probe station. Cryogenic probe stations are unlikely to ever reach the maturity level required to demonstrate qubit operation beyond I-V measurements. Thus, cryogenic on-chip multiplexing appears to be the only viable candidate for the development, optimization, and scaling up of silicon quantum processors based on large-scale statistical analysis from nominally identical silicon spin qubit devices.
The most promising way to realize cryogenic multiplexing, control, and/or readout of qubits is cryogenic CMOS electronics (cryo-CMOS). Using the same process to fabricate both qubits and CMOS circuits on the same chip, the ultra-low-charge noise background (limiting spin qubit performance due to spin-orbit coupling) of QD qubit devices at high temperatures above 1 K was demonstrated.
We aim to extend cryogenic multiplexers to accommodate hundreds of spin qubit devices on few mm2 silicon chip and apply recently developed machine-learning algorithms to allow for automated extraction of electrostatic and spin coherence properties of qubit arrays within the same cooldown.
Bringing together quantum and semiconductors, we can deliver more affordable products, endless opportunities for collaboration, and of course, the current holy grail of quantum, faster and more efficient scale-up.
Speed and price that are hard to beat
We work out of Micronova, an advanced research facility for nano- and microtechnology located in Espoo, Finland. Our access to Micronova’s pilot-line fab makes us exceptionally nimble and allows us to benefit from fast design and fabrication cycles.
This access to world-class research infrastructure sets our speed and cost from nearly everyone else in the quantum component game. It allows us to run new fabrication cycles every few months and achieve a pace of technology and product development that would be otherwise practically impossible, or at the very least, incredibly costly.
We work together with universities and private sector partners around the world to put our components to use, and to collect feedback that allows us to incorporate improvements in each iteration.
As a spin-out from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, we continue to work closely with the Finnish quantum and semiconductor ecosystems and benefit from national investments into new infrastructure, including Kvanttinova, an industry-driven piloting and development facility for microelectronics and quantum technology that will be built next door to our current facilities.
“We already have world’s best transistors for cryogenic use”
Our cryo-CMOS transistor – world’s first transistor fully optimized for cryogenic conditions
Until now, traditional electronic components have typically been used in ultra-low temperatures, such as quantum computers, despite them chronically underperforming in cryogenic conditions. As part of our mission to overcome the engineering challenges that stand in the way of scalable, sustainable, and cost-effective quantum computers, SemiQon has developed world’s first transistors specifically designed and optimized to function efficiently in cryogenic temperatures.
Engineered to perform in temperatures of 1 Kelvin and lower, SemiQon’s new cryo-CMOS transistor consume 0.1% of the power and deliver heat dissipation levels 1,000 times lower than traditional room-temperature transistors. The users will benefit from both improvedfunctionality of their hardware and by significantly reduced costs.
This first-of-its-kind solution brings the power of advanced CMOS circuits, the backbone of all modern electronics, to be integrated directly with qubits. It reduces the amount of expensive control electronics infrastructure required for quantum computers, making future QCs significantly less cumbersome to build and more efficient to operate. Placing the cryo-optimized control and readout electronics directly inside a cryostat, alongside the processors simplifies the growing complexity around control and read-out of quantum processors, which is a serious bottleneck hindering the scale-up of quantum computers.
With the help of our new transistor, the ever-expanding quantum computer “chandelier” may be getting a makeover.
In the near term, SemiQon’s cryo-CMOS transistors, which are expected to reach first customers in 2025, will offer substantial value to users in the advanced computing sector and in particular, quantum computing. In the future, however, these devices have important application potential also beyond quantum, and they could significantly improve energy efficiency – also leading to reduced climate impact – and provide cost savings also in high-performance computing (HPC) and space technologies.
On track to realize the potential of quantum computing. Our way.
We are proud to say that we are on track to achieve what we set out to do. Over the first year and half of SemiQon’s operations, we have secured critical IP, hit several technology milestones, and successfully overcome challenges along the way.
We have been able to stabilize the fabrication processes, ship out our first chips, create quantum dots with good performance, and most recently, successfully produced and verified world’s best transistors.
Read more about our first year and thoughts on what’s to come.
First ever CMOS transistor fully optimized for cryogenic conditions released by SemiQon
