26.2 Design Considerations for Superconducting Quantum Systems

A distinguishing feature of quantum system engineering is that it must contend with the nature of “quantum processors” as extended objects. A traditional processor is composed of many elements including instruction decoders, arithmetic logical units, register files, and I/O systems. In quantum processors, these functions are distributed across two elements often separated by many meters: a qubit plane and a control system. The qubit chip is sometimes referred to in isolation as a quantum processing unit, but in reality is merely a quantum memory. Quantum logic operations are actuated through external stimuli that manipulate and measure the quantum state of the qubit chip. The control system assumes all other functions we associate with a processor.