Israel's Weizmann Institute Builds a 5 Qubit Ion Trap Processor

WEIZQC Quantum Processor. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum

The processor is Israel's first quantum processor and is codenamed WEIZQC as a tribute to Israel's first classical processor, WEIZAC, which was built with vacuum tubes in 1955. WEIZQC consists of a chain of Strontium ions in a linear trap and is the first step in a program to build a 64 qubit processor within the next one to two years. An interesting feature for us is that this processor already supports a mid-circuit measurement capability that can be used in error correction algorithms and other circuits designed to leverage this capability which is currently only supported by Quantinuum, IBM. A few key technical parameters of this device include a 97.3% two qubit gate fidelity, 200 microsecond gate time, and 2 millisecond coherence time. The ratio between coherence time and gate time is a little low, so additional work will be needed in order to improve these qubit quality measures along with increasing the numbers of qubits for the design to be competitive. Additional information about this effort can be seen in an article published on Israel's Haaretz website and a technical paper published by the Weizmann team at PRX Quantum.

March 26, 2022