SQC announces record qubit read-out fidelities at high temperatures

10 April 2025, Sydney Australia – SQC’s quantum chip platform, element 14|15, is made from phosphorus (element 15) atom qubits precision placed in silicon (element 14 of the periodic table).The platform benefits from the ability to precision engineer read-out sensors close to the qubit. This, combined with the large energy separation of the phosphorus atom’s quantum states, allows us to reduce read-out speed by an order of magnitude and simultaneously demonstrate high-quality operation at 3.7K temperature.This represents another significant milestone for 14|15 qubits and their overall utility and usability vs. competitors. It is also a landmark for the platform’s potential power consumption and at-scale economics.Having previously demonstrated extremely high-fidelity (99.95%) and industry-leading gate operation speeds (0.8 ns), both sufficient for scaling, we have now focussed on qubit read-out speed. Qubit read-out speeds are critical for algorithmic operation as they are typically much longer than the gate speeds, resulting in a longer time-to-solution.The team at SQC team have now successfully brought down the qubit read-out time by an order of magnitude to an industry leading 175 ns integration time.

Due to the naturally strong confinement potential of our qubits in the 14|15 platform, and the ability to precision engineer the tunnel rates, we can operate our compact read-out sensors at the highest temperatures recorded so far (3.7 K). With ruthless focus on high quality operation, our performance is showcased above, where the team have achieved a gate fidelity of 97.9% at a speed of 1.5μs at 3.7K.“Temperature is a critical factor when scaling solid-state quantum hardware platforms, and for us the possibility of operating at these high temperatures provides access to greater cooling power as we scale” said Sam Gorman, a lead author on the paper.“Our peer-reviewed results released today further demonstrate the benefits afforded by our 14|15 platform, phosphorus atom qubits in silicon. By controlling our manufacturing in-house we not only engineer high fidelity but also rapid read-out speeds and high temperature operation.” said Michelle Simmons, CEO.For more details: “High-fidelity sub-microsecond single-shot electron spin readout above 3.5 K” by Helen Geng, Mitchell Kiczynski, Andrey Timofeev, Edyta Osika, Daniel Keith, Joseph Rowlands, Ludwik Kranz, Rajib Rahman, Yousun Chung, Joris Keizer, Samuel Gorman, and Michelle Simmons.