Intel partners with QuTech to produce silicon qubits at scale

Intel announced a partnership with QuTech, the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), successfully mass-producing silicon qubits for the first time through Intel’s D1 manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, making quantum computing truly within reach.

Its process results can produce more than 10,000 arrays on a single wafer, and have multiple silicon spin qubits, with a yield rate of more than 95%. This achievement greatly exceeds the performance of the current process used in ordinary universities and laboratories.  At the same time, the research has also been published in the journal Nature Electronics, becoming Intel’s first peer-reviewed research to demonstrate the feasibility of successfully fabricating qubits on 300mm silicon wafers.

“Quantum computing has the potential to deliver exponential performance for certain applications in the high-performance compute space,” said James Clarke, director of Quantum Hardware at Intel. “Our research proves that a full-scale quantum computer is not only achievable but also could be produced in a present-day chip factory. We look forward to continuing to work with QuTech to apply our expertise in silicon fabrication to unlock the full potential of quantum.”

The new process uses advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques, including all-optical lithography used to produce silicon spin qubits, and the same equipment used to produce Intel‘s latest generation of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) chips, and it was demonstrated that qubits can be mass-produced on the same factory lines as conventional wafers.