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M. Babaie

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112 records found

Co-integrating a cryo-CMOS SoC with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond enables a scalable quantum platform. This work introduces a combined Class-DE RFDAC and class-D PDM driver for multi-qubit electron- and nuclear-spin control. A switch allows shared coil driving enabling multi-band 2.5-3.2GHz(1.9-2.1MHz), large-current 70mA(38mA), high-Rabi frequency 2.31MHz(1.93kHz) and high-fidelity 99.34(3)%(99.78(2)%) electron(nuclear) quantum logic gates with decoupled coherence times >50ms. ...
This paper presents the first cryogenic characterization of Hot Carrier Degradation (HCD) in 5-V thick-oxide transistors fabricated in a 160-nm CMOS technology. HCD significantly worsens in nMOS devices at 4.2 K, leading to a more severe degradation, especially of threshold voltage and current in the linear regime. Contrary to expectations, pMOS devices exhibit a temporary performance improvement after stress, showing for the first time at 4.2 K a HCD-induced turn-around effect in threshold voltage and current. The threshold-voltage shift follows a power law with stress time, showing a much higher exponent at $4.2 K$ than at $300 K$ for nMOS, but not for pMOS devices. The threshold-voltage shift also follows a power law with stress voltage, strongly accelerated for nMOS at 4.2 K, but unchanged for pMOS. ...
This work presents a cryo-CMOS smart temperature sensor operating from room temperature down to 5 K. By adopting sensing elements (CMOS bulk diodes, pMOS/DTMOS in weak inversion) that circumvent the poor cryogenic performance of Si BJTs, a robust switched-capacitor second-order sigma–delta readout and cryogenic-aware design techniques, the sensor achieves a maximum error of ±0.73 K (four samples and two-point trim), a resolution below 0.05 K for a 102.4-ms readout duration, and a power consumption of 15.5 µW 93.5 µW) at 5 K (296 K). ...
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have emerged as leading cryogenic photon detectors, thanks to their high detection efficiency and low jitter. However, their large-scale integration remains limited by the wiring bottleneck between the cryogenic detectors and their room-temperature readout electronics. In applications such as color-center-based quantum computers (QCs), thousands of detectors may need to operate in parallel within a limited cryogenic cooling budget, thus asking for a scalable, low-power cryogenic electronic readout. To address these needs, this work introduces a cryogenic readout circuit directly wire-bonded to the SNSPD and using a high-impedance input to maximize the quality of the detector signal, thus relaxing the requirement of the cascaded amplifier and reducing its power consumption. An active quenching circuit is then adopted to ensure a reliable reset after the latching of the detector induced by such high input impedance. Implemented in 40-nm CMOS with an active area of <0.14 mm2, the system achieves competitive performance at 0.1 K, delivering low timing jitter (<40 ps), high speed (dead time of ≈5 ns), and dark count rates (DCRs) below 1 Hz, while achieving a 5× reduction in power consumption (down to 20 μW) with respect to the cryogenic-readout state-of-the-art. Its ultralow-power operation and compact footprint make the proposed solution well-suited for integration within large-scale quantum-computing architectures. ...
Semiconductor-based cryogenic quantum processors require the accurate biasing of a large number of gate electrodes, which are typically individually wired to room-temperature DACs. To prevent the wiring bottleneck when scaling to future very large processors, this work proposes a scalable cryo-CMOS DAC that can operate with a S&H demultiplexer close to the quantum processor. By adopting an integrator-based switched-capacitor DAC with a dynamically-biased high-voltage output stage, both the required large output range and high resolution can be achieved while sharing the DAC over a large number of electrodes, thus improving the power efficiency. Fabricated in a 22-nm FinFET technology, the DAC occupies 0.076 mm2. At 4.2 K (RT), it achieves an LSB of 57.1 µV (68.3 µV) over a 3 V range with 188 µVrms (192µVrms) noise and 36.5-LSB (12.6-LSB) INL while dissipating 157 µW (138 µW). The low power dissipation and the potential to drive more than 30,000 electrodes paves the way for scalable biasing of quantum processors operating down to mK temperatures. ...
This paper presents a mm-wave non-magnetic balanced circulator that bridges the gap between the high insertion loss (IL) of electrical balance duplexers and the transmitter (TX)to-receiver (RX) isolation degradation of conventional circulators under varying antenna (ANT) voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR). Using quadrature couplers, a balance network, and (non)-reciprocal branches, it achieves <5.2dB TX-to-ANT IL, <4.2dB RX-to-ANT IL, and >20dB TX-to-RX isolation over a >2.2GHz bandwidth at VSWR=2. ...
This work presents a fractional-N digital PLL that employs a supply-resilient, time-amplifying dual-ramp DTC, which offers 8× time amplification and maintains its linearity under supply variations. Additionally, a DTC code-randomization technique is included to enhance the DTC gain-calibration accuracy and convergence speed at near-integer channels. The PLL achieves <-59dBc fractional spurs and 74fs rms jitter for a stable supply and 88.5fs rms jitter for a 29mVrms, 10MHz-bandwidth supply noise. ...
Conference paper (2025) - S. İlik, M. Babaie, F. Sebastiano
A reliable cryogenic device model is still missing despite the increasing demand for high-performance cryo-CMOS circuits. Although prior work proposed capacitance-voltage (CV) characterization to gain insights into the device cryogenic behavior, no accurate and comprehensive data is yet available. Moreover, the significant inconsistencies between the simulations using the available models and characterization data have not been investigated. To circumvent those shortcomings, this paper presents an extensive and accurate CV characterization over multiple geometries, frequencies, AC excitation voltages, and temperatures. Furthermore, we provide explanations for the observed deviations from the room-temperature characteristics and propose a model for a more accurate surface-potential calculation. Thanks to those data and the model, we can successfully simulate the CV curve of a transistor at cryogenic temperatures, which represents an essential step toward a complete cryogenic transistor model. ...
This paper presents a scalable cryogenic readout solution for Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) tailored for the readout of color-center-based qubits. The readout circuit, wire-bonded directly to the SNSPD, utilizes high input impedance to boost the signal amplitude, hence reducing the power consumption, and active quenching to prevent the latching induced by the high impedance. Fabricated in 40-nm CMOS in a 0.14-mm 2 active area, the proposed system demonstrates competitive performance at 0.1 K, featuring low jitter [<60 ps Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM)], high speed (dead time ≈ 5 ns) and low dark count rate (<1 Hz), while dissipating only 20 μ W. Such an ultra-low power and compact area enables the readout integration within a large-scale colorcenter quantum computer. ...
Spins associated to solid-state color centers are a promising platform for investigating quantum computation and quantum networks. Recent experiments have demonstrated multiqubit quantum processors, optical interconnects, and basic quantum error-correction protocols. One of the key open challenges towards larger-scale systems is to realize high-fidelity universal quantum gates. In this work, we design and demonstrate a complete high-fidelity gate set for the two-qubit system formed by the electron and nuclear spin of a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We use gate set tomography (GST) to systematically optimize the gates and demonstrate single-qubit gate fidelities of up to 99.999⁢(1)% and a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.93⁢(5)%. Our gates are designed to decouple unwanted interactions and can be extended to other electron-nuclear spin systems. The high fidelities demonstrated provide opportunities towards larger-scale quantum processing with color-center qubits. ...
This paper presents extensive guidelines for the design of an integrated DC-readout interface for semiconductor spin qubits. Since the focus is on the readout via a single electron transistor (SET), the SET behavior and performance are first described and modeled, showing that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) theoretically achievable by a SET-based DC-readout is significantly beyond the state-of-the-art. Practical circuit architectures for implementing a DC-readout, such as the voltage amplifier, the transimpedance amplifier, the charge sampling, and the current pre-amplifier, are then analyzed by deriving their design equations and trade-offs. As a result, the practical performances of those different solutions are evaluated and compared, thus presenting clear selection criteria for the readout architecture and its design equations given the specific parameters of the SET sensor. ...
Quantum computers require large-scale error correction codes to circumvent the limited fidelity of physical qubits. However, current error decoders are either not scalable to practical code sizes or cannot meet the strict real-time decoding requirements. This work presents a novel decoder for stabilizer error correction codes that exploits hyperdimensional computing to offer an efficient hardware implementation for large-scale codes, thus achieving low latency and high throughput. Next to a universal approach for generating the necessary hypervectors, an efficient method specific to surface codes is devised. In this very first implementation, the proposed decoder outclasses popular graph-based decoders for small surface codes with depolarizing noise and efficiently scales to large codes, thus representing both a suitable solution for near-term real-time error correction and a promising alternative for future large-scale codes. ...
Journal article (2025) - Mohammad Ali Montazerolghaem, Masoud Babaie
This article presents a sub-7-GHz receiver (RX) for the fifth-generation (5G) local area base station applications. A Rauch transimpedance amplifier (TIA) with a third-order high-pass impedance in its feedback is adopted to enhance RX selectivity and provide higher loop gain (LG) at the bandwidth edge, improving in-band linearity for high-bandwidth applications. An N-path notch filter, sharing switches with down-converting passive mixers, is incorporated in the low-noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) to enhance out-of-band linearity without limiting the RX’s operating frequency. Additionally, a frequency-dependent negative capacitance is realized at the LNTA input by exploiting the bandpass characteristic of the TIA input impedance, which helps achieve a flat in-band response, extend the RX bandwidth, and improve front-end filtering roll-off. Fabricated in 40-nm CMOS technology, the RX occupies a 1.3-mm2 area, operates from 0.4 to 7.3 GHz, and consumes 105–195 mW from a 1.3-V supply. It achieves a third-order output third-order intercept point (OIP3) of 27–38 dBm over a 300-MHz channel bandwidth and a noise figure (NF) of 3.2–5.8 dB across its operating range. With its high linearity, low NF, and enhanced selectivity, the RX satisfies 3GPP standard requirements for reference sensitivity, in-band blocking, close-in blocking, and far-out blocking. ...
The rapidly growing number of qubits in semiconductor quantum computers requires a scalable control interface, including the efficient generation of dc bias voltages for gate electrodes. To avoid unrealistically complex wiring between any room-temperature electronics and the cryogenic qubits, this article presents an integrated cryogenic solution for the bias-voltage generation and distribution for large-scale semiconductor spin-qubit quantum processors. A dedicated cryogenic CMOS (cryo-CMOS) demultiplexer and a cryo-CMOS dc digital-to-analog converter (DAC) have been developed in a 22-nm fin field-effect transistor process to control a codeveloped 2-D array designed with 648 single-hole transistors. Thanks to the dissipation below 120 µ W, the whole system operates at temperatures below 70 mK in a custom-built electrical/mechanical infrastructure embedded in a standard single-pulse-tube dilution refrigerator. The bias voltages generated by the cryo-CMOS DAC are demultiplexed to sample-and-hold structures, allowing to store 96 unique bias voltages over a 3 V range with a voltage drift between 60 µ V / s and 18 mV/s. This work demonstrates a tight integration at mK temperatures of cryo-CMOS bias generation and distribution with a dedicated large-scale quantum device. This showcases how this approach simplifies the wiring to the electronics, thus facilitating the scaling up of quantum processors toward the large number of qubits required for a practical quantum computer. ...
Conference paper (2025) - Renxu Yang, R. B. Staszewski, M. Babaie, Z. Zong
This paper proposes two fully passive techniques to reduce the supply sensitivity of an LC oscillator. An RC low-pass filter is employed to reduce the supply sensitivity of coarse-tuning switched capacitors stemming from code-dependent parasitic capacitance. To cancel the remaining supply sensitivity, the supply variations are scaled and coupled to polarity-switchable varactor pairs, which are introduced in the resonator to provide a frequency tuning gain that is reverse to the supply sensitivity. A programmable capacitive divider is used to scale the supply variations by a proper ratio. The proposed techniques are applied in a 5.83-6.99 GHz class-B LC oscillator. Prototyped in 65-nm CMOS, the oscillator occupies 0.24 mm 2 and consumes 6.8 mW from 1 V. With supply perturbations in the 0.1-50 MHz frequency range, the measured reduction of the supply sensitivity is 20-46.2 dB, which is the highest reported over a wide frequency range. Benefiting from the fully passive implementation, the proposed techniques do not consume extra power or degrade the phase noise. ...
This article presents a family of sub-1-V, fully-CMOS voltage references adopting MOS devices in weak inversion to achieve continuous operation from room temperature (RT) down to cryogenic temperatures. Their accuracy limitations due to curvature, body effect, and mismatch are investigated and experimentally validated. Implemented in 40-nm CMOS, the references show a line regulation better than 2.7%/V from a supply as low as 0.99 V. By applying dynamic element matching (DEM) techniques, a spread of 1.2% (3σ ) from 4.2 to 300 K can be achieved, resulting in a temperature coefficient (TC) of 111 ppm/K. As the first significant statistical characterization extending down to cryogenic temperatures, the results demonstrate the ability of the proposed architectures to work under cryogenic harsh environments, such as space- and quantum-computing applications. ...
We realize high-fidelity gates for the two-qubit system formed by NV center. Using gate set tomography, we report gate fidelities exceeding 99%, and analyze the origin of the errors. ...
Color-center quantum bits (qubits), such as the Nitrogen-Vacancy center (NV) in diamond, have demonstrated entanglement between remote (>1.3km) qubits and excellent coherence times [1], all while operating at a few Kelvins. Compared to other qubit technologies typically operating at mK temperatures, the higher operating temperature of NVs enables scalable 3D integration with cryo-CMOS control electronics [2], provides significantly more cooling power, and removes the interconnect bottleneck between the qubits and the electronics in prior art [3-5]. Yet, no cryo-CMOS controller for NV-based quantum computers (QC) has been demonstrated. ...
This paper presents an extensive characterization of the low-frequency noise (LFN) at room temperature (RT) and cryogenic temperature (4.2 K) of 40-nm bulk-CMOS transistors. The noise is measured over a wide range of bias conditions and geometries to generate a comprehensive overview of LFN in this technology. While the RT results are in-line with the literature and the foundry models, the cryogenic behavior diverges in many aspects. These deviations include changes with respect to RT in magnitude and bias dependence that are conditional on transistor type and geometry, and even an additional systematic Lorentzian feature that is common among individual devices. Furthermore, we find the scaling of the average LFN with the area and its variability to be similar between RT and 4.2 K, with the cryogenic scaling reported systematically for the first time. The findings suggest that, as no consistent decrease of LFN at lower temperatures is observed while the white noise is reduced, the impact of LFN for precision analog design at cryogenic temperatures gains a more predominant role. ...