Control and Readout Software in Superconducting Quantum Computing

TL;DR

This paper presents a client-server software architecture for superconducting quantum computers that manages instruments efficiently, improves data transmission speeds, and simplifies control and readout processes as the number of qubits increases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel software framework with resource management, waveform processing, and optimized communication for scalable quantum control and readout.

Findings

Data transmission speeds reach hundreds of Mbps

Unified resource management simplifies instrument control

Efficient waveform generation and data analysis implemented

Abstract

Digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) as an important part of the superconducting quantum computer are used to control and readout the qubit states. The complexity of instrument manipulation increases rapidly as the number of qubits grows. Low-speed data transmission, imperfections of realistic instruments and coherent control of qubits are gradually highlighted which have become the bottlenecks in scaling up the number of qubits. To deal with the challenges, we present a solution in this study. Based on client-server (C/S) model, we develop two servers called Readout Server and Control Server for managing self-innovation digitizer, arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and ultra-precision DC source which enable to implement physical experiments rapidly. Both Control Server and Readout Server consist three parts: resource manager, waveform engine and communication interface. The resource manager maps the resources of separate instruments to a unified virtual instrument and automatically aligns the timing of waveform channels. The waveform engine generates and processes the waveform for AWGs or captures and analyzes the data from digitizers. The communication interface is responsible for sending and receiving data in an efficient manner. We design a simple data link protocol for digitizers and a multi-threaded communication mechanism for AWGs. By using different network optimization strategies, both data transmission speed of digitizers and AWGs reach hundreds of Mbps through a single Gigabit-NIC.