Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Microsystems and Solid State Technologies EMFT28 European research partners from 10 countries aim at designing, building and operating a quantum processor of up to 1,000 qubits in Europe. In the future, it will be made available to external users at a central site. As part of the project, Fraunhofer EMFT is providing the development of new fabrication processes for qubit chips, which will facilitate chip manufacturing on an industrial scale for commercial use in the future.
OpenSuperQplus100: Open Superconducting Quantum Computers made in Europe
Silicon wafer with aluminium qubit chips – close-up
The OpenSuperQplus100 Project aims at delivering systems and technologies for quantum computers based on superconductors. The project is part of the EU strategic research agenda for the quantum technology flagship and will deliver integrated demonstrators for research and application purposes, one of which will contain at least 100 high-quality qubits. Core elements of the project are the development of a design and fabrication platform for high-quality quantum chips and their integration into multi-chip-modules. OpenSuperQplus100 will deliver the necessary components and the enabling hard- and software to achieve these goals. All these aspects are complemented by a test and benchmarking suite, exploring the potential realization of beyond-classical performance in real-world applications.
The Fraunhofer EMFT research team contributes to the project by developing new qubit chip fabrication processes in its pilot line, which will enable the future industrial-scale chip fabrication for commercial purposes. In this work, the individual qubit manufacturing processes are being defined for 200 mm wafers in our cleanroom facilities and characterized using project-standardized procedures. Together with the European project partners (VTT, Chalmers, Alto, TUDelft, WMI, and Quantware) a Process Development Kit (PDK) will be established, in order to bring manufacturing of qubit chips on 200 mm wafers to industrial-standards.
Reaching out for the 1.000 qubit level
With its composition of leading companies, RTOs and academic research groups, the OpenSuperQplus100 Project is closely aligned with the national agendas of the involved EU Member States. The partners aim to develop structured IP guidelines and commercialization strategies for key exploitable results and serve as a reliable information platform for European stakeholders from industry, science, politics and society. The consortium anticipates special use cases in quantum simulation, e.g. in the chemical industry and materials science, and in solving optimization problems as well as in machine learning.
In addition to technological research, the project also includes a wide range of activities in the areas of standardization, education and ethics, which will contribute to the relevant discussions at European level.
The current activities are intended to pave the way for breaking the 1000 qubits milestone in a follow-up project.