Fully-integrated data acquisition system operating at cryogenic temperature for semiconductor qubits

Compact and scalable quantum computer required physical qubits with low footprint and cryogenic electronics to be used in situ as standard control/readout system. The small spatial gap between the quantum chip and the cryogenic electronics limits the complexity of the wiring connections and the associated stray capacitance of the wires themselves, yielding a gain in terms of bandwidth and resolution. These improvements allow to design a fully-integrated CMOS readout based on current measurements with similar performances compared to the most common RF reflectometry-based readout technique. Here, we propose an acquisition system, operating at 4.2 K, which converts the spin dependent current coming from a single-electron transistor charge sensor into a digital output with a small power consumption (1 mW/qubit) and small occupation area (< 1 mm
²
). The system on chip consists of a low noise active integrator for the spin current, feeding a programmable threshold comparator to provide a digital output of the qubit state. It exhibits a resolution of tens of pA over an average input current of 1 nA with a time resolution of 1 μs.Compared to spin-qubit readout based on RF-reflectometry techniques, our solution does not require bulky off-chip compo-nents and to handle microwave signal and fast analog-to digital converters.