Important Notes:
- Only attendees physically located in Canada for the duration of the course and until fabrication is complete can fabricate and access CAD tools.
- We provide three registration options. Only graduate students who are currently registered with a Canadian university are eligible to register for Option 1. Attendees affiliated with industry in Canada are welcome to register in option 2 or 3.
- If you are registering in an option that includes fabrication (Options 1 and 2), you will be required to complete export control questionnaires. Contact Sarah Neville (Neville@cmc.ca) to get a copy of the questionnaires.
- To obtain access to confidential technology information provided during the course, your organization is required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with CMC Microsystems. Please contact Charles Paradis (Charles.Paradis@cmc.ca) to facilitate the NDA execution process prior to June 10, 2022.
- Course participants will have access to other proprietary and confidential information during the course, each participant is required to sign an Access to Intellectual Property & Non-Disclosure Agreement. Participants should submit a signed agreement to Sarah Neville (Neville@cmc.ca) prior to June 17, 2022.
Quantum computing has the potential to solve problems beyond the capabilities of conventional supercomputers. It could revolutionize the advancement of several fields, including biochemistry, finance, logistics, and artificial intelligence. However, building quantum hardware is a great challenge, involving both concepts and technology that have little in common with those in conventional silicon chips. It involves cryogenic environments and in the currently most advanced approach, it relies on superconducting circuits that display macroscopic quantum effects. These concepts and techniques are not part of the usual science and engineering curriculum.
To fill this gap, the Universities of Calgary and Victoria, the two NSERC CREATE programs – Quantum BC and QSciTech – the three quantum institutes – Institut quantique, Institute for Quantum Computing and the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute – and CMC Microsystems have joined forces to bring to you the workshop on the design, fabrication, and testing of superconducting devices used in quantum computer hardware. We invite you to join the virtual workshop taking place from June 20 to July 8.
The workshop will teach participants how to design, simulate, fabricate, and test their own superconducting circuits. The workshop will cover the fundamentals of superconductors and Josephson junctions, and how to design circuits such as resonators, SQUIDs and qubits. Students will brainstorm with researchers at leading Canadian universities and industry to pitch their device idea, and use CMC-provided CAD tools to design, simulate and submit devices for fabrication by a foundry facilitated by CMC. Most participants will test their chips in a 4K probe station at one of the universities, or with a dilution refrigerator already available for those students pursuing a Ph.D. in experimental quantum information science. Students without access to a low-temperature probe station will be able to test devices at the Quantum Fab Lab at Institut quantique.
The workshop will include an awards ceremony for the best student presentations. In addition, students who choose to fabricate devices will participate in a Design Competition taking place in November 2022.
Don’t miss this build your own superconducting device workshop, which will allow you to learn why superconducting devices are at the heart of today’s commercial quantum computers such as those of D-Wave, Google, IBM, and Rigetti.
Workshop Details
When: June 20, 23, 27, 30 and July 4, 6, 8, 2022
Start Time: 8 am Pacific/11 am Eastern
End Time: 2:30 pm Pacific/5:30 pm Eastern
The workshop will run 4.5 hours per day in three 1.5-hour sessions with breaks in between. The schedule is adapted for participants from both the West and East coasts. It will be focused on teamwork and problem-based learning. Specific topics include:
- Superconductivity and the London equations. The Josephson junction. The RF- and DC-SQUID.
- Circuit extraction and distributed circuit design. Transmission lines, resonators, and filters.
- Readout of superconducting circuits.
- Design-Fabricate-test cycle (completed after the workshop):
Participants will design their circuits, then submit them for manufacturing using the established new CMC process (the target submission deadline will be 3 months after the workshop). Students may also use their own home institution fabrication infrastructure. Participants will then test their chips at their home institution (chips will be delivered 3-6 months after submission), or at 4 K infrastructure arranged by CMC (see below). - Example circuits that students can design, and which can be tested at 4 K:
RF resonators, transmission lines and filters; AC SQUIDs – at 4 K they work as magnetic field sensors and at low T become qubits.
The workshop activities are listed below. You may click the table to see an enlarged view.
Target Audience
The target audience for this workshop are:
- Graduate students who have completed the UBC course EECE 571S Introduction to Quantum Computing by Joe Salfi, or
- Graduate students who have completed the Université de Sherbrooke course PHY 737 Information et calcul quantiques (or PHY 637) by Alexandre Blais, or
- Graduate students who have completed the Simon Fraser University course PHYS 816 Quantum Information Science or
- Graduate students who have completed the University of Waterloo courses QIC710 and QCI750 as general courses, or the QIC880 course on superconducting devices.
- Other students, postdoctoral researchers, academics and industry members with relevant backgrounds in science and/or engineering.
Registration and Fees
| Option | Option 1: Workshop + CAD + Fab | Option 2: Workshop + CAD + Fab | Option 3: Workshop only (no CAD and no Fab) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Graduate Students in Canada: $750 |
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| Registration | Closed. | ||
* Registrants will be grouped in teams of 4 or 5. Teams are responsible for submitting the design at the deadline of October 15, 2022. Fabrication cancellations have to be communicated in writing to Charles Paradis (charles.paradis@cmc.ca) at the latest by July 31, 2022.
** Industrial attendees in Canada registered in option 2 can join a team but will not receive copies of the devices. To have direct access to the devices, Industrial attendees must register as option 3 and acquire a chip area separately. Please contact fab@cmc.ca for pricing.
Contact
If you have any comments or questions regarding the contents or registrations of this workshop, please contact:
- Brent Jodoin from CMC Microsystems: brent.jodoin@cmc.ca, or
- The QSciTech management team from Université de Sherbrooke: info@qscitech.ca, or
- Bahiyyih Peters from The University of British Columbia: bahiyyih.peters@ubc.ca.
Organizing Committee
- Shabir Barzanjeh – UCalgary
- Yves Bérubé-Lauzière – IQ/UdS
- Lukas Chrostowski – SBQMI/UBC
- Rogério de Sousa – UVic
- Max Hofheinz – IQ/UdS
- Adrian Lupascu – IQC/UW
- Matteo Mariantoni – IQC/UW
- Udson Mendes – CMC Microsystems
- Joe Salfi – SBQMI/UBC
Cancellations
Event cancellations must be received in writing at least one (1) week before the beginning date of the event in question to receive a full refund of the registration fee. A cancellation made after the deadline will not receive a refund.