Semiconductor quantum chip

It may not be possible to accurately predict when the "quantum computing era" will come. However, in the eyes of scientists, there are no fundamental difficulties that can prevent the birth of this revolutionary product.

Computers have become an indispensable tool in our daily life. If you ask “What is your computer's CPU? Is it Intel or AMD?” In fact, Intel and AMD are essentially semiconductors. The chip, the basic unit is a semiconductor transistor. In the future, computer chips may have one more choice: quantum chips.

A semiconductor chip is a semiconductor device that can be etched, wired, and fabricated on a semiconductor wafer to realize a certain function, and mainly includes semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide, silicon, and silicon germanium. With the demand for smaller electronic products, transistors have become more and more integrated and the size of individual transistors has become smaller and smaller. According to scientists' calculations, by 2020, each transistor will be small enough to have only one electron, a single-electron transistor. However, once the “quantum tunneling effect” occurs in the process of ever-smaller transistors, the electrons can “pass through” directly from the transistors, and classical logic operations will no longer exist.

It is understood that the major computer chip manufacturers in the world are still trying to avoid the quantum tunneling effect. In the long run, it is better to use quantum quantum computing chips instead of using them instead.

　　 Quantum computers will rise

In recent years, scientists have used quantum effects to perform quantum computation and quantum information technology research on single-electron transistors, and expect to develop practical quantum computers. Quantum computers are a class of physical devices that follow quantum mechanical laws for high-speed mathematical and logical operations, storage, and processing of quantum information. When a device processes and calculates quantum information and runs a quantum algorithm, it is a quantum computer.

It may not be possible to accurately predict when the “quantum computing era” will come. However, in the eyes of scientists, there are no fundamental difficulties that can prevent the birth of this revolutionary product. The semiconductor quantum chip studied by scientists is a quantum processor capable of performing logical operations and processing quantum information processes. It is a core device for the development of quantum computers, analogous to a semiconductor computer (CPU) that is fully electronically controlled in classical computers.

For modern computers, by controlling the high and low levels of the transistor voltages to determine whether a data is "1" or "0", the "1" or "0" binary data pattern is used, commonly known as the classic bit. Quantum computers use qubits, each of which is represented by a microscopic quantum state. According to the principle of quantum mechanics, qubits can be in the superposition state of “1” and “0” at the same time. The inputs and outputs of quantum calculations are all probabilistic. This is one of the odd characteristics of quantum mechanics. Due to the existence of this superposition state, the quantum computer can perform the calculation of many paths at the same time. After many calculations, accurate results can be obtained.

This feature gives quantum computers superior computing power. Quantum computers are used for some complex computational tasks such as password deciphering, climate simulation and biomedical simulation. Quantum computers can operate tens of thousands times faster than traditional computers.