ICARUS-Q: Integrated control and readout unit for scalable quantum processors
We present a control and measurement setup for superconducting qubits based on the Xilinx 16-channel radio-frequency system-on-chip (RFSoC) device. The proposed setup consists of four parts: multiple RFSoC boards, a setup to synchronize every digital to analog converter (DAC) and analog to digital converter (ADC) channel across multiple boards, a low-noise direct current supply for tuning the qubit frequency, and cloud access for remotely performing experiments. We also designed the setup to be free of physical mixers. The RFSoC boards directly generate microwave pulses using sixteen DAC channels up to the third Nyquist zone, which are directly sampled by its eight ADC channels between the fifth and the ninth zones.
Topics
Analog-to-digital converter, Analog circuits, Field programmable gate array, Control equipment, Frequency measurement, Information technology, Programming languages, Signal processing, Signal-to-noise ratio
I. INTRODUCTION
Superconducting qubits in the dilution refrigerator are controlled and measured with room temperature electronics. A typical superconducting qubit is designed with its transition energy in the order of a few GHz and requires arbitrary and precise microwave generation and detection for control and measurement. As the number of qubits increases, the number of microwave channels required increases linearly. Therefore, designing a qubit control system that is scalable, compact, and cost-effective, while maintaining its precision, speed, and features, is imperative.
Apart from the microwave circuits for frequency up/down-conversion, a basic qubit control system consists of digital to analog converters (DACs), analog to digital converters (ADCs), and stable current sources; the DACs generate the microwave pulses that travel into the fridge, the ADCs digitize the analog signals that travel out of the fridge, and the current source tunes the qubit frequencies.