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arXiv:2405.19891

Improving the Fidelity of CNOT Circuits on NISQ Hardware

Dohun Kim, Minyoung Kim, Sarah Meng Li, Michele Mosca

Published May 30, 2024• 0 citations
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Abstract

We introduce an improved CNOT synthesis algorithm that considers nearest-neighbour interactions and CNOT gate error rates in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware. Compared to IBM's Qiskit compiler, it improves the fidelity of a synthesized CNOT circuit by about 2 times on average (up to 9 times). It lowers the synthesized CNOT count by a factor of 13 on average (up to a factor of 162). Our contribution is twofold. First, we define a $\textsf{Cost}$ function by approximating the average gate fidelity $F_{avg}$. According to the simulation results, $\textsf{Cost}$ fits the error probability of a noisy CNOT circuit, $\textsf{Prob} = 1 - F_{avg}$, much tighter than the commonly used cost functions. On IBM's fake Nairobi backend, it matches $\textsf{Prob}$ to within $10^{-3}$. On other backends, it fits $\textsf{Prob}$ to within $10^{-1}$. $\textsf{Cost}$ accurately quantifies the dynamic error characteristics and shows remarkable scalability. Second, we propose a noise-aware CNOT routing algorithm, NAPermRowCol, by adapting the leading Steiner-tree-based connectivity-aware CNOT synthesis algorithms. A weighted edge is used to encode a CNOT gate error rate and $\textsf{Cost}$-instructed heuristics are applied to each reduction step. NAPermRowCol does not use ancillary qubits and is not restricted to certain initial qubit maps. Compared with algorithms that are noise-agnostic, it improves the fidelity of a synthesized CNOT circuit across varied NISQ hardware. Depending on the benchmark circuit and the IBM backend selected, it lowers the synthesized CNOT count up to $56.95\%$ compared to ROWCOL and up to $21.62\%$ compared to PermRowCol. It reduces the synthesis $\textsf{Cost}$ up to $25.71\%$ compared to ROWCOL and up to $9.12\%$ compared to PermRowCol. Our method can be extended to route a more general quantum circuit, giving a powerful new tool for compiling on NISQ devices.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2405.19891

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We introduce an improved CNOT synthesis algorithm that considers nearest-neighbour interactions and CNOT gate error rates in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware. Compared to IBM's Qiskit compiler, it improves the fidelity of a synthesized CNOT circuit by about 2 times on average (up to 9 times). It lowers the synthesized CNOT count by a factor of 13 on average (up to a factor of 162). Our contribution is twofold. First, we define a Cost\textsf{Cost}Cost function by approximating the average gate fidelity FavgF_{avg}Favg​. According to the simulation results, Cost\textsf{Cost}Cost fits the error probability of a noisy CNOT circuit, Prob=1−Favg\textsf{Prob} = 1 - F_{avg}Prob=1−Favg​, much tighter than the commonly used cost functions. On IBM's fake Nairobi backend, it matches Prob\textsf{Prob}Prob to within 10−310^{-3}10−3. On other backends, it fits Prob\textsf{Prob}Prob to within 10−110^{-1}10−1. Cost\textsf{Cost}Cost accurately quantifies the dynamic error characteristics and shows remarkable scalability. Second, we propose a noise-aware CNOT routing algorithm, NAPermRowCol, by adapting the leading Steiner-tree-based connectivity-aware CNOT synthesis algorithms. A weighted edge is used to encode a CNOT gate error rate and Cost\textsf{Cost}Cost-instructed heuristics are applied to each reduction step. NAPermRowCol does not use ancillary qubits and is not restricted to certain initial qubit maps. Compared with algorithms that are noise-agnostic, it improves the fidelity of a synthesized CNOT circuit across varied NISQ hardware. Depending on the benchmark circuit and the IBM backend selected, it lowers the synthesized CNOT count up to 56.95%56.95\%56.95% compared to ROWCOL and up to 21.62%21.62\%21.62% compared to PermRowCol. It reduces the synthesis Cost\textsf{Cost}Cost up to 25.71%25.71\%25.71% compared to ROWCOL and up to 9.12%9.12\%9.12% compared to PermRowCol. Our method can be extended to route a more general quantum circuit, giving a powerful new tool for compiling on NISQ devices.
NISQ devices have inherent limitations in terms of connectivity and hardware noise. The synthesis of CNOT circuits considers the physical constraints and transforms quantum algorithms into low-level quantum circuits that can execute on physical chips correctly. In the current trend, quantum chip architectures without Hamiltonian paths are gradually replacing architectures with Hamiltonian paths due to their scalability and low-noise characteristics. To this end, this paper addresses the nearest neighbor synthesis of CNOT circuits in the architectures with and without Hamiltonian paths, aiming to enhance the fidelity of the circuits after execution. Firstly, a key-qubit priority mapping model for general quantum architectures is proposed. Secondly, the initial mapping is further improved by using tabu search to reduce the number of CNOT gates after circuit synthesis and enhance its fidelity. Finally, the noise-aware CNOT circuit nearest neighbor synthesis algorithm for the general architecture is proposed based on the key-qubit priority mapping model. The algorithm is demonstrated on several popular cloud quantum computing platforms and simulators, showing that it effectively optimizes the fidelity of CNOT circuits compared with mainstream methods. Moreover, the method can be extended to more general circuits, thereby improving the overall performance of quantum computing on NISQ devices.
While mapping a quantum circuit to the physical layer one has to consider the numerous constraints imposed by the underlying hardware architecture. Connectivity of the physical qubits is one such constraint that restricts two-qubit operations, such as CNOT, to ``connected'' qubits. SWAP gates can be used to place the logical qubits on admissible physical qubits, but they entail a significant increase in CNOT-count. In this paper we consider the problem of reducing the CNOT-count in Clifford+T circuits on connectivity constrained architectures, like noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computing devices. We ``slice'' the circuit at the position of Hadamard gates and ``build'' the intermediate {CNOT,T} sub-circuits using Steiner trees, significantly improving on previous methods. We compared the performance of our algorithms while mapping different benchmark and random circuits to some well-known architectures such as 9-qubit square grid, 16-qubit square grid, Rigetti 16-qubit Aspen, 16-qubit IBM QX5 and 20-qubit IBM Tokyo. Our methods give less CNOT-count compared to Qiskit transpiler as well as using SWAP gates. Assuming most of the errors in a NISQ circuit implementation are due to CNOT errors, then our method would allow circuits with few times more CNOT gates be reliably implemented than the previous methods would permit.
The current phase of quantum computing is in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era. On NISQ devices, two-qubit gates such as CNOTs are much noisier than single-qubit gates, so it is essential to minimize their count. Quantum circuit synthesis is a process of decomposing an arbitrary unitary into a sequence of quantum gates, and can be used as an optimization tool to produce shorter circuits to improve overall circuit fidelity. However, the time-to-solution of synthesis grows exponentially with the number of qubits. As a result, synthesis is intractable for circuits on a large qubit scale. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical, block-by-block optimization framework, QGo, for quantum circuit optimization. Our approach allows an exponential cost optimization to scale to large circuits. QGo uses a combination of partitioning and synthesis: 1) partition the circuit into a sequence of independent circuit blocks; 2) re-generate and optimize each block using quantum synthesis; and 3) re-compose the final circuit by stitching all the blocks together. We perform our analysis and show the fidelity improvements in three different regimes: small-size circuits on real devices, medium-size circuits on noise simulations, and large-size circuits on analytical models. Using a set of NISQ benchmarks, we show that QGo can reduce the number of CNOT gates by 29.9% on average and up to 50% when compared with industrial compilers such as t|ket>. When executed on the IBM Athens system, shorter depth leads to higher circuit fidelity. We also demonstrate the scalability of our QGo technique to optimize circuits of 60+ qubits. Our technique is the first demonstration of successfully employing and scaling synthesis in the compilation toolchain for large circuits. Overall, our approach is robust for direct incorporation in production compiler toolchains.
While mapping a quantum circuit to the physical layer one has to consider the numerous constraints imposed by the underlying hardware architecture. Connectivity of the physical qubits is one such constraint that restricts two-qubit operations, such as CNOT, to “connected” qubits. SWAP gates can be used to place the logical qubits on admissible physical qubits, but they entail a significant increase in CNOT-count. In this article, we consider the problem of reducing the CNOT-count in Clifford+T circuits on connectivity-constrained architectures, like noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computing devices. We “slice” the circuit at the position of Hadamard gates and “build” the intermediate{CNOT,T}\{\text {CNOT},{T}\}{CNOT,T}subcircuits using Steiner trees, significantly improving on previous methods. We compared the performance of our algorithms while mapping different benchmark and random circuits to some well-known architectures, such as 9-qubit square grid, 16-qubit square grid, Rigetti 16-qubit Aspen, 16-qubit IBM QX5, and 20-qubit IBM Tokyo. Our methods give less CNOT-count compared to Qiskit and TKET transpiler as well as using SWAP gates. Assuming most of the errors in an NISQ circuit implementation are due to CNOT errors, then our method would allow circuits with a few times more CNOT gates be reliably implemented than the previous methods would permit.
While mapping a quantum circuit to the physical layer one has to consider the numerous constraints imposed by the underlying hardware architecture. Connectivity of the physical qubits is one such constraint that restricts two-qubit operations, such as CNOT, to “connected’‘ qubits. SWAP gates can be used to place the logical qubits on admissible physical qubits, but they entail a significant increase in CNOT-count. In this paper we consider the problem of reducing the CNOT-count in Clifford+T circuits on connectivity constrained architectures, like noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computing devices. We “slice’‘ the circuit at the position of Hadamard gates and “build” the intermediate {CNOT,T} sub-circuits using Steiner trees, significantly improving on previous methods. We compared the performance of our algorithms while mapping different benchmark and random circuits to some well-known architectures such as 9-qubit square grid, 16-qubit square grid, Rigetti 16-qubit Aspen, 16-qubit IBM QX5 and 20-qubit IBM Tokyo. Our methods give less CNOT-count compared to Qiskit transpiler as well as using SWAP gates. Assuming most of the errors in a NISQ circuit implementation are due to CNOT errors, then our method would allow circuits with few times more CNOT gates be reliably implemented than the previous methods would permit.
The current phase of quantum computing is in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era. On NISQ devices, two-qubit gates such as CNOTs are much noisier than single-qubit gates, so it is essential to minimize their count. Quantum circuit synthesis is a process of decomposing an arbitrary unitary into a sequence of quantum gates, and can be used as an optimization tool to produce shorter circuits to improve overall circuit fidelity. However, the time-to-solution of synthesis grows exponentially with the number of qubits. As a result, synthesis is intractable for circuits on a large qubit scale. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical, block-by-block opti-mization framework, QGo, for quantum circuit optimization. Our approach allows an exponential cost optimization to scale to large circuits. QGo uses a combination of partitioning and synthesis: 1) partition the circuit into a sequence of independent circuit blocks; 2) re-generate and optimize each block using quantum synthesis; and 3) re-compose the final circuit by stitching all the blocks together. We perform our analysis and show the fidelity improvements in three different regimes: small-size circuits on real devices, medium-size circuits on noisy simulations, and large-size circuits on analytical models. Our technique can be applied after existing optimizations to achieve higher circuit fidelity. Using a set of NISQ benchmarks, we show that QGo can reduce the number of CNOT gates by 29.9% on average and up to 50% when compared with industrial compiler optimizations such as t|ket). When executed on the IBM Athens system, shorter depth leads to higher circuit fidelity. We also demonstrate the scalability of our QGo technique to optimize circuits of 60+ qubits, Our technique is the first demonstration of successfully employing and scaling synthesis in the compilation tool chain for large circuits. Overall, our approach is robust for direct incorporation in production compiler toolchains to further improve the circuit fidelity.