Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Superconducting single flux quantum (SFQ) technology for power-efficiency computing

  • Review Paper
  • Published:
CCF Transactions on High Performance Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Superconducting integrated circuits (ICs) based on Josephson junctions (JJs) and superconducting materials subvert semiconductor ICs at the device level. For over 50 years, superconducting IC technology has realized a technological upgrade from latch logic circuits, which utilize level logic, to single flux quantum (SFQ) ones, which utilize high-speed pulse logic. Only micron-level process nodes are needed to achieve advantages in the speed and power consumption of SFQ circuits. After more than 30 years of development, SFQ logic has become a large family, mainly including rapid single-flux-quantum (RSFQ), reciprocal quantum logic (RQL), energy-efficient single flux quantum technology (ERSFQ), low-voltage RSFQ (LV-RSFQ) and adiabatic quantum flux parametron (AQFP). So far, the maximum number of JJs on a superconductor chip has exceeded 1 million. Applications of SFQ circuits have widely expanded in superconducting computing, such as radio frequency (RF) signal processing and superconducting quantum computing control circuits. Semiconductor ICs have insurmountable technical bottlenecks of speed and power consumption in the sub-10 nm node. Therefore, superconducting ICs have been listed in the international roadmap for devices and systems (IRDS) as a frontier of microelectronics in the post-Moore era. Among all the countries, U.S. and Japan are always at the cutting edge in this field. China has entered the stage of rapid development in superconducting ICs and has realized basic software and hardware platforms for comprehensive research and design of superconducting large-scale SFQ circuits. This paper presents the status of SFQ technology for energy-efficient computing applications and discusses the latest progress in the research and development of SFQ microprocessors.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Fig. 21
Fig. 22
Fig. 23
Fig. 24
Fig. 25

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dayan Liu and Bicong Weng from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology for helping edit the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jie Ren or Guangming Tang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ren, J., Tang, G., Wang, F. et al. Superconducting single flux quantum (SFQ) technology for power-efficiency computing. CCF Trans. HPC 4, 182–210 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42514-022-00114-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42514-022-00114-y

Keywords

Navigation