Milestone in the establishment of a European supply chain for materials and production processes for qubits

At the third and final review meeting of the MATQu project, it became apparent during the presentation of the project results consisting of a total of 56 deliverables and 60 project milestones: the project was a success! The international joint project was launched three years ago with the aim of providing crucial support for the central hardware element of a quantum computer, the so-called qubit, on its way to market maturity. For a technology to be scalable and thus relevant for the market, it needs reliable supply chains. In the case of a technology as complex as qubits, this means new and innovative infrastructures ranging from substrate technology and process technology to tools and systems for production. For this purpose, partners from seven nations and 18 institutions from academia and industry joined forces in MATQu to make decisive progress across the entire solid-state qubit value chain.

At the final meeting in Delft, the project results were presented in the form of 14 demonstrators covering various future qubit product platforms. These include substrates for qubit integration on industry-grade wafer sizes, technology chemicals for manufacturing processes, cryogenic probing solutions, test and measurement equipment for characterizing qubit devices, as well as several other products that actively support the value chain. In addition to the demonstrators, the project produced 24 scientific publications and 18 pending patent applications. The meeting in the Netherlands was rounded off with laboratory tours at Orange Quantum Systems and Delft Circuits.

The KDT-JU Program Officer, the external reviewers as well as the project partners agreed at the end of the two-day review meeting: MATQu was a successful and important step towards creating a European supply chain for materials and production processes for qubits. The foundations have been laid, now the challenge is to build on them and further expand international cooperations. Only in this way can the EU play a leading role worldwide in the industrialization of qubit technologies.

This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No. 101007322. The JU received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Finland, Israel.