A scalable control architecture for superconducting quantum processors is essential as the number of qubits increases and coherent multi-qubit operations span beyond the capacity of a single control module. The Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit (QICK), built on AMD RFSoC platforms, offers a flexible open-source framework for pulse-level qubit control but lacks native support for multi-board synchronization, limiting its applicability to mid- and large-scale quantum devices. To overcome this limitation, we introduce Manarat, a scalable multi-board control platform based on QICK that incorporates hardware, firmware, and software enhancements to enable sub-100 ps timing alignment across multiple AMD ZCU216 RFSoC boards. Our system integrates a low-jitter clock distribution network, modifications to the tProcessor, and a synchronization scheme to ensure deterministic alignment of program execution across boards. It also includes a custom analog front-end for flux control that combines high-speed RF signals with software-programmable DC biasing voltages generated by a low-noise, high-precision DAC. These capabilities are complemented by a software stack capable of orchestrating synchronized multi-board experiments and fully integrated with the open-source Qibo framework for quantum device calibration and algorithm execution. We validate Manarat on a 10-qubit superconducting processor controlled by two RFSoC boards, demonstrating reliable execution of synchronized control sequences for cross-board CZ gate calibration. These results confirm that sub-nanosecond synchronization and coherent control are achievable across multiple RFSoC boards, enabling scalable operation of superconducting quantum computers.
A scalable control architecture for superconducting quantum processors is essential as the number of qubits increases and coherent multi-qubit operations span beyond the capacity of a single control module. The Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit (QICK), built on AMD RFSoC platforms, offers a flexible open-source framework for pulse-level qubit control but lacks native support for multi-board synchronization, limiting its applicability to mid- and large-scale quantum devices. To overcome this limitation, we introduce Manarat, a scalable multi-board control platform based on QICK that incorporates hardware, firmware, and software enhancements to enable sub-100 ps timing alignment across multiple AMD ZCU216 RFSoC boards. Our system integrates a low-jitter clock distribution network, modifications to the tProcessor, and a synchronization scheme to ensure deterministic alignment of program execution across boards. It also includes a custom analog front-end for flux control that combines high-speed RF signals with software-programmable DC biasing voltages generated by a low-noise, high-precision DAC. These capabilities are complemented by a software stack capable of orchestrating synchronized multi-board experiments and fully integrated with the open-source Qibo framework for quantum device calibration and algorithm execution. We validate Manarat on a 10-qubit superconducting processor controlled by two RFSoC boards, demonstrating reliable execution of synchronized control sequences for cross-board CZ gate calibration. These results confirm that sub-nanosecond synchronization and coherent control are achievable across multiple RFSoC boards, enabling scalable operation of superconducting quantum computers.
We introduce a Xilinx RF System-on-Chip (RFSoC)-based qubit controller (called the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit, or QICK for short), which supports the direct synthesis of control pulses with carrier frequencies of up to 6 GHz. The QICK can control multiple qubits or other quantum devices. The QICK consists of a digital board hosting an RFSoC field-programmable gate array, custom firmware, and software and an optional companion custom-designed analog front-end board. We characterize the analog performance of the system as well as its digital latency, important for quantum error correction and feedback protocols. We benchmark the controller by performing standard characterizations of a transmon qubit. We achieve an average gate fidelity of Favg=99.93%. All of the schematics, firmware, and software are open-source.
This thesis presents the development of a superconducting qubit control and readout system based on FPGA technology, with a focus on the design of a pulse sequencer and the integration of frequency-multiplexed control. The system leverages the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit (QICK), an open-source Xilinx RFSoC-based platform capable of direct digital synthesis and acquisition of microwave signals up to 10 GHz. The QICK firmware was extended to support the simultaneous generation and readout of multiple frequency-multiplexed tones, enabling the control and measurement of several qubits coupled to a shared feedline. This approach optimizes the number of controllable qubits relative to the available ADC and DAC resources on the RFSoC 4x2 board. Furthermore, this work includes the development of Qubase, a Python-based pulse sequencer that allows users to easily define and execute complex sequences of control and measurement pulses through the QICK Python interface. The resulting architecture is both flexible and scalable, providing a foundation for efficient multi-qubit experiments and enabling advanced techniques such as quantum error correction and real-time feedback.
Achieving high-fidelity operation in large-scale superconducting qubit systems requires not only control hardware with broad frequency coverage, low crosstalk, and tight synchronization but also software that coordinates system configuration, experiment execution, and data analysis. Here we present an integrated qubit-control system that combines broadband microwave hardware with a pulse-level software stack for scalable superconducting qubit experiments. The hardware provides broadband microwave coverage, including an instantaneous span of up to 1.6 GHz from a control output, while the software reduces setup and calibration overhead through automated configuration and built-in experiment workflows. We validate the system on a 64-qubit fixed-frequency transmon chip through full-chip frequency identification and representative demonstrations, including multi-unit far-detuned cross-resonance calibration and benchmarking that yields a measured two-qubit gate fidelity of 98.34%, and multilevel readout beyond the computational subspace. By disclosing the hardware architecture and releasing the software stack as open source, this work provides an inspectable hardware-software foundation for scalable superconducting qubit control experiments.
The QICK (Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit), first introduced in 2022, is a standalone open source control system for quantum information science. Since then, QICK has been migrated to new hardware platforms, expanded its functionality for applications with different types of qubits (superconducting, atomic, ion-trapped, and spin defects), as well as quantum sensors, and quantum networks. QICK is a highly optimized control kit, with a library of functions that can be used for more than one application. In particular, the software and firmware are customized to minimize latency and maximize control performance and throughput. In this white paper, we describe hardware details and performance of the QICK Box. The QICK Box features up to 16 outputs, up to 8 inputs, and 8 20-bit DC biases. Modular output and input daughtercards give the choice of signal chains optimized for fast DC-coupled signals or RF signals up to 10 GHz. Power levels, step attenuation, and bandpass filtering are controlled by software. We demonstrate the system's performance through single-shot readout measurements of a six-transmon device at the Quantum Underground Instrumentation Experimental Testbed (QUIET) at Fermilab, achieving (91.7 +/- 0.4)% readout fidelity limited by T1 decay during the readout. The single shot readout signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 4.4 +/- 0.1 without a quantum amplifier, confirming that the QICK Box is suitable for high-fidelity quantum control and measurement applications. Advances in firmware and software will be described in a separate paper.
Control electronics synchronization is of vital importance in scaling up modular quantum computer implementations. It is a critical performance parameter in distributed quantum computing. We present a White Rabbit-based control electronics synchronization architecture using multiple AMD Ultrascale+ architecture-based Radio Frequency System on Chips (RFSoC). White Rabbit ensures precise synchronization across all Radio Frequency Digital-to-Analog Converters (RF-DACs) and Analog-to-Digital Converters (RF-ADCs) in a multi-board architecture and also establishes a classical network between the boards. This synchronization is crucial for generating multiple control signals required for scaling up the number of qubits in quantum computing architectures. By minimizing phase jitter and timing inconsistencies across boards, this approach can significantly improve qubit gate operations, error correction efficiency, and overall system performance.
Quantum error correction (QEC) is essential for realizing large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computation, yet its practical implementation remains a major engineering challenge. In particular, QEC demands precise real-time control of a large number of qubits and low-latency, high-throughput and accurate decoding of error syndromes. While most prior work has focused primarily on decoder design, the overall performance of any QEC system depends critically on all its subsystems including control, communication, and decoding, as well as their integration.
To address this challenge, we present an open-source, fully integrated QEC system built on RISC-Q, a generator for RISC-V-based quantum control architectures. Implemented on RFSoC FPGAs, our system prototype integrates real-time qubit control, a scalable distributed multi-board architecture, and the state-of-the-art hardware QEC decoder within a low-latency, high-throughput decoding pipeline, forming a complete hardware platform ready for deployment with superconducting qubits.
Experimental evaluation on a three-board prototype based on AMD ZCU216 RFSoCs demonstrates an end-to-end QEC decoding-feedback latency of 446 ns for a distance-3 surface code, including syndrome aggregation, network communication, syndrome decoding, and error distribution. Extrapolating from measured subsystem performance and state-of-the-art decoder benchmarks, the architecture can achieve sub-microsecond decoding-feedback latency up to a distance-21 surface code ($\sim$881 physical qubits) when scaled to larger hardware configurations.