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Quantum Computer

01 /Quantum Computers 02 /How to build a qubit 03 /Spin qubits (beginner level) 04 /Operations on spin qubits (beginner level) 05 /Electron spin qubits 06 /Capturing a single electron 07 /Quantum dot qubits 08 /Quantum control and readout 09 /Qubit errors 10 /NV center qubits 11 /Operations on NV center qubits 12 /The Transmon Qubit - A basis for the Quantum Computer 13 /Operations on the Transmon Qubit - Circuit QED 14 /Single-qubit operations on the Transmon qubit 15 /Measurements on the Transmon Qubit 16 /Two-qubit operations on the Transmon qubit 17 /Topological qubits: Anyons 18 /Operations on anyons: Braiding 19 /Operations on anyons: Real-life experiments 20 /Topological quantum computing: Majorana fermions and where to find them 21 /Majorana bound states in superconductors 22 /How do you measure Majorana bound states? 23 /A framework for the future Quantum Computer 24 /The Building Blocks of a Quantum Computer 25 /How to build a Quantum Algorithm - Quantum Circuits 26 /How do you program a quantum algorithm? 27 /The compiler of a quantum computer 28 /Micro-architectures 29 /How do we connect our quantum system to a classical interface? 30 /Assembling a Quantum Processor 31 /Microwave drivers for qubits 32 /Implementation of microwave drivers 33 /Quantum error correction 34 /Surface codes 35 /Fault-tolerant Quantum Error Correction with surface codes

Micro-architectures

You have probably already seen that although the actual speedup for many quantum algorithms lies in the “quantum” nature of the qubits, many of these algorithms still require a fair amount of classical information processing for it to work. It is, therefore, crucial that the channels containing classical and quantum information can work together seamlessly. 

This is where the micro-architecture comes into play. In this first video, QuTech researcher Nader Khammasi will introduce the arbiter, a component that determines whether to execute a given instruction on a classical or quantum processor. Doing this spares the quantum computer from performing tasks that can be carried out more reliably and efficiently on classical hardware.

 

Prerequisite knowledge

Okay, so the arbiter decides which piece of information goes to the classical channel, and which to the quantum channel. Let’s focus on the quantum channel for now. After the quantum processor has performed its quantum algorithm, we should also think about how to acquire the information from the qubits. In other words, we need to think about measuring qubits. Professor at QuTech Koen Bertels will talk about this process in the context of the micro-architecture in the next video. At the end of the video, Prof. Bertels explains why the field of Quantum Error Correction (QEC) is such an essential part of the subject we are discussing here.

Further thinking

In the second video, Professor Bertels emphasizes that we should repeat our quantum algorithm many times since we rely on quantum measurements. Why is that? Suppose we increase our number of measurements by a factor of 2, can we “trust” our outcome twice as good as well? Why (not)?

Solution

Further reading

Check this article about microarchitecture for superconducting quantum processors.