Groove Quantum bets on germanium for scalable spin qubits

[AlexaBliss]

Delft startup Groove Quantum believes the future of quantum computing lies in germanium. Bits and Chips' Paul van Gerven has a feature on the company, which was spun out of QuTech about two years ago. It is worth noting that the piece was written in close collaboration with Groove

Groove builds spin qubits using holes in germanium rather than electrons in silicon. Holes are, in simple terms, missing electrons that behave like positive charges. In germanium, these carriers are lighter, which allows qubits to sit around 200 to 250 nanometres apart and gives manufacturers more margin for error

Germanium also has strong spin orbit coupling, which makes it easier to control qubits electrically and to build dense two dimensional arrays. Groove has shown an 18 qubit germanium chip, which it says matches the largest spin qubit devices reported anywhere

The company aims to present a 100 qubit chip by the end of next year. The article points out that useful machines will need around a million qubits, so there is a long way to go. Still, spin qubits share manufacturing techniques with ordinary chips, which could help them scale quickly

It has been an interesting week for spin qubits, with the RIKEN parallel control result in silicon as well. Germanium and silicon may end up competing directly. Either way, the chip industry connection makes this an approach worth watching

Germanium or silicon for spin qubits? And can startups like Groove compete with Intel and other big players?

Why Groove is betting quantum computing's future rests on germanium - Bits&Chipsbits-chips.com

[NWO_Hurricanrana]

Wider spacing between qubits is a big manufacturing advantage. Tight tolerances make chips expensive and fragile

Germanium seems more forgiving. Yield matters enormously in chip manufacturing

[Sophie89]

Intel has bet on silicon for years. A startup choosing germanium is a bold contrast. Competition between materials is healthy. Different bets spread the risk across the industry