Delft University of Technology Quantum Control Architecture Bridging the Gap between Quantum Software and Hardware Fu, Xiang DOI 10.4233/uuid:8205cc34-30df-45f0-b6eb-8081bdb765b8 Publication date 2018 Document Version Final published version Citation (APA) Fu, X. (2018). Quantum Control Architecture: Bridging the Gap between Quantum Software and Hardware. https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:8205cc34-30df-45f0-b6eb-8081bdb765b8 Important note To cite this publication, please use the final published version (if applicable). Please check the document version above. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons. Takedown policy Please contact us and provide details if you believe this document breaches copyrights. We will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. This work is downloaded from Delft University of Technology. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to a maximum of 10. Quantum Control Architecture: Bridging the Gap between Quantum Software and Hardware Dissertation for the purpose of obtaining the degree of doctor at Delft University of Technology by the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof.dr.ir. T.H.J.J. van der Hagen chair of the Board for Doctorates to be defended publicly on Tuesday 11 December 2018 at 15:00 o’clock by Xiang FU Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology, China born in Yueyang, China This dissertation has been approved by the promotors: Prof.dr.ir. K. L. M. Bertels Prof.dr. L. DiCarlo Composition of the doctoral committee: Rector Magnificus chairperson Prof.dr.ir. K. L. M. Bertels Delft University of Technology, promotor Prof.dr. L. DiCarlo Delft University of Technology, promotor Independent members: Dr. M. Lujan´ University of Manchester, United Kingdom Prof.dr. R. Wille Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Prof.dr. L. M. K. Vandersypen Delft University of Technology Dr. F. Sebastiano Delft University of Technology Prof.dr. S. Hamdioui Delft University of Technology (reserve member) Non-independent member: Dr. C. G. Almudever Delft University of Technology Keywords: Quantum Instruction Set Architecture, Quantum Control Microarchi- tecture, Quantum Architecture Simulator Printed by: Ipskamp Printing, Enschede Front & Back: Designed with help from Dr. Yu Xin, Lin Chen, and Tiantian Du. The front cover is inspired by Michelangelo’s painting the Creation of Adam: a fully programmable quantum computer requires collabo- ration of quantum software and hardware. The left hand is filled with the picture of the first waveforms measured from CBox v3, which work forms the foundation of this thesis. The back cover is the pic- ture (photographer: Jacob de Sterke) of one printed circuit board of QuTech Waveform Generator designed by Wouter J. Vlothuizen (TNO/QuTech), which implements the codeword-triggered pulse generation mechanism of QuMA. Copyright c 2018 by X. Fu ISBN 978-94-028-1305-0 An electronic version of this dissertation is available at http://repository.tudelft.nl/. Dedicated to Hua Xia Civilization N夏文明 Acknowledgments In the enormous space and long-lasting time, this thesis would be a trivial thing. However, treating this thesis as the most important fruit I harvested from my four-year work in TU Delft, I cannot easily get calm while seeing its birth. With great joy in my heart, I cannot forget you, who appear in my life and help me reach this achievement. At this moment, I realize how pale my words are when compared to my sincere gratitude to you. My deepest thanks go to my promotors Prof. Koen Bertels and Prof. Leonardo DiCarlo. Thank you for providing me the golden opportunity to study quantum computer architecture in a “heterogeneous” environment com- posed of people from both the quantum computer architecture lab (QCAL) and the DiCarlo lab (DCL) with different working style, which enables me to grasp a lot of both hard and soft skills and produce considerable outcomes with the uncommon collaboration. Koen, thank you for letting me know how important it is to share a comfortable working environment and how to contribute to such an environment, for supporting me to develop my ideas, and for your delicious spaghetti dinners and a lot of fun parties at your place. Leo, thank you for teaching me to become a better collaborator, for teaching me to be strict in research, for your high standard which drove me to release my potential, and for your confidence in me and the support in turning my idea into real projects. Also, you set up a standard in my mind of a good teacher, like which I wish I could be in the future when teaching my students. Carmina, thank you, thank you for your warmhearted greetings in every cold morning and your consideration in our daily life which made me feel QCAL was my second home outside China. I will never forget it. Thank you for your encouragement which strengthens my confidence in developing our ar- chitecture, and for allocating various resource required without condition in the CC-Light project which enables me focusing on the research work. Grandpa Jacob, Mr. the Strong1, you taught me so much, varying from the 1This is a joke by Leo: The surname of Jacob is de Sterke, which means the Strong in English. i basic VHDL programming, project quality control, project management, team dynamics, and so on. You are my mentor in engineering. Without you, I cannot develop the timing tape in CBox v2 and later finish the QuMA processor in CBox v3. Without you, the CC-Light project would be in a mess and cannot be controlled. I can still remember the moment that you are in such a hurry before the QuMA paper submission deadline to tell me that the description of the module frequencies is imprecise, which made me believe that our team together can do the best job in the world. Your jokes and ‘dangerous’ activities relaxed me so much in a high-stress working environment. I wish I could still play with you and hear you calling me “Processor Fu” even ten or twenty years later. But, could you please stop kicking my ass!? Adriaan, you are more an engineer than a physicist to my understanding. You taught me how to write good code and ensure the code quality. You may not know what a treasure your analysis on my situation is when I was frustrated by other colleagues during the collaboration. You taught me always to think about things with a positive altitude, which helps me a lot. What enjoyable moments they were when we had beer together in the de Oude Jan after working for ten hours in the lab. I wish we could drink together more. Leon, we have been working together for more than three years and produced interesting results. Thank you for teaching me various programming skills. We had so much fun together, and I wish we could still do it, no matter where you and I are. I wish you could enjoy your work in a satisfactory position in the future. Imran, you are always humble and productive. It is indeed a joy to work with you. Thank you for that. Hans, the discussion with you always challenged my understanding, which led us to the correct path to quantum computer architecture and quantum compiler. Jeroen, thank you for the clas- sical pipeline of CC-Light you created in an amazing way. It was a supreme experience to work you and I learned a lot from it. Wish we could have more collaboration in the future. Mengyu （_¹）, it was an enjoyable time that we created QuMAsim together. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to work with you. Wish you have a cozy life with Xiaoxiao （笑笑）in Shenzhen. Miguel, you are a gifted student. Without you, maybe we cannot finish the QCC project. Wish you can learn more and become an independent researcher in the future. My colleagues in QCAL, Savvas, Dan, Andreas, Vieri, Nader, Aritra, Abid, Daniel, Amitab thank you for your interesting discussions and a lot of fun we had together. Niels, you always present a delighted face and cares about the feeling of colleagues in the lab. Thank you for bringing the relaxation in a relatively ii mentally-tense group. Please do not forget our mission to write the book Niels and Xiang2. Ale, can you be crazier regarding your ideas about the work we are doing? Thank you for inviting me to your parties. Thank you for making me feel being loved. Enjoy your happy moments with your family with Nolan! Chris, thank you for sharing the moment we imagine the future of quantum computing and discuss Go and The Three-body Problem together! Thank you for the music parties, where you make me envy you so much to play instru- ments wonderfully! Ramiro, it was a nice experience that we are getting more and more smooth and mature when working together. Thank you! Stefano, thank you for answering our entry-level questions in detail and patiently when we first stepped into the quantum computing field. It made us feel that peo- ple in the quantum computing field are always welcoming newcomers. Flo, Brian, Tom, Thijs, Nadini, Xavi, though I most of the time I cannot keep track of what you are talking about, I do enjoy seeing you treating the ideas seriously, which opens a window for me to see a new world. It is always a lot of fun to be with you.