Xanadu Partners with Imec for Fabrication of Xanadu's Photonic Quantum Chips

Xanadu, a full-stack quantum startup developing photonics-based quantum hardware, will use imec to build their chips. Imec (Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre), located in Leuven, Belgium, is a non-profit research and development organization active in nanoelectronics and digital technologies with significant semiconductor processing capabilities. The processing will occur on one of imec's 200mm or 300mm fabrication lines and will use an ultra-low loss silicon nitride (SiN) waveguide technology to generate squeezed states for synthesizing qubits. Xanadu is the second photonics based quantum company announcing a partnerships with a semiconductor foundry to build its chips. Earlier this year, PsiQuantum announced it will be using GlobalFoundries to manufacture its chips. Like PsiQuantum, Xanadu believes their technology will have the potential to scale to 1 million qubits through the use of optical networking. Photonics technology also has the capability to run at room temperatures and not require expensive dilution refrigerators like those required with superconducting based systems. Additional information can be found in a press release provided by Xanadu which can be found here.

August 17, 2021