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IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems

Timing-Aware Qubit Mapping and Gate Scheduling Adapted to Neutral Atom Quantum Computing

Yongshang Li, Yu Zhang, Mingyu Chen, Xiang‐Yang Li, Peng Xu

Published Mar 27, 2023• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As a less developed but potential quantum technology, neutral atoms (NAs) can provide advantages, including higher qubit connectivity, longer-range interactions, and much more native multicontrol gates than superconductivity. Long-range interactions, however, prevent parallelism of interacting qubit pairs with their surrounding restriction zones. Therefore, the quantum program cannot be run directly on an NA quantum computer (NAQC) unless compiled. The recent compiling study of NAQC applies simple layer-by-layer scheduling and does not consider the difference in gate duration. To address the above issues, we focus on the qubit mapping and quantum gate scheduling (M&S) problem of quantum circuits to meet hardware constraints of superconductivity and even NAs. Our goal is to shorten the execution time to mitigate decoherence noise. We propose a block-game-like abstraction mechanism TETRIS which is an abstract model of the M&S problem and aware of the duration difference of gates and several other NA characteristics. Based on the abstraction, we propose a heuristic greedy algorithm (HGA) to solve the M&S problem efficiently. To further speed up the execution of the circuit, we embed HGA into a Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) framework to solve the M&S problem, which consumes more compiling time but achieves a better result. Comparing our MCTS algorithm with the only recent M&S algorithm for NAQC, the average speedup ratio is$1.75\times $for several quantum circuits collected from RevLib, and$1.18\times $for circuits from Qiskit Lib.

DOI
10.1109/tcad.2023.3261244

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As a less developed but potential quantum technology, neutral atoms (NAs) can provide advantages, including higher qubit connectivity, longer-range interactions, and much more native multicontrol gates than superconductivity. Long-range interactions, however, prevent parallelism of interacting qubit pairs with their surrounding restriction zones. Therefore, the quantum program cannot be run directly on an NA quantum computer (NAQC) unless compiled. The recent compiling study of NAQC applies simple layer-by-layer scheduling and does not consider the difference in gate duration. To address the above issues, we focus on the qubit mapping and quantum gate scheduling (M&S) problem of quantum circuits to meet hardware constraints of superconductivity and even NAs. Our goal is to shorten the execution time to mitigate decoherence noise. We propose a block-game-like abstraction mechanism TETRIS which is an abstract model of the M&S problem and aware of the duration difference of gates and several other NA characteristics. Based on the abstraction, we propose a heuristic greedy algorithm (HGA) to solve the M&S problem efficiently. To further speed up the execution of the circuit, we embed HGA into a Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) framework to solve the M&S problem, which consumes more compiling time but achieves a better result. Comparing our MCTS algorithm with the only recent M&S algorithm for NAQC, the average speedup ratio is1.75×1.75\times 1.75×for several quantum circuits collected from RevLib, and1.18×1.18\times 1.18×for circuits from Qiskit Lib.
Neutral atom quantum computers (NAQCs) are emerging as a highly promising platform for scalable quantum computing, thanks to their long qubit coherence times, flexible qubit layouts, and ability to implement multi-qubit gates [1]. Despite these advantages,executing circuits often requires moving qubits physically, which makes compilation a crucial and challenging optimization task. To address this, we developed a circuit-independent compiler framework based on graph theory that determines the minimum number of qubit transfers needed, including those involved in multi-qubit gates. This model captures the spatial restrictions inherent to NAQC platforms with zone-limited gate operations. Using this framework, we formulated the qubit mapping problem as a nonlinear integer program and solved it with a genetic algorithm, enabling control over trade-offs between the total distance qubits travel and the number of parallel transfer operations (PTOs). When benchmarked against the leading ZAC compiler [2], our approach consistently reduces the number of qubit transfers. Depending on the optimization goal, it can either shorten the overall travel distance or minimize PTOs. The work presented in this poster thus provides a tool for efficient, architecture-aware quantum circuit compilation. [1] Ludwig Schmid et al, “Computational capabilities and compiler development for neutral atom quantum processors—connecting tool developers and hardware experts”, Quantum Sci. Technol. 9 033001, doi: 10.1088/2058-9565/ad33ac (2024) [2] W. Lin, D. B. Tan and J. Cong, “Reuse-Aware Compilation for Zoned Quantum Architectures Based on Neutral Atoms”, IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2025, pp. 127-142, doi: 10.1109/HPCA61900.2025.00021 (2025
Neutral atom quantum computers (NAQC) are emerging as a promising, scalable quantum computing platform because of their long qubit coherence, flexible qubit arrangement, and multiqubit gate capabilities. However, circuit execution often requires physically moving qubits, making compilation a critical optimization challenge. We propose a circuit independent mathematical framework built on graph-theoretic combinatorial optimization that determines the minimal number of required qubit transfers. This model captures spatial constraints specific to NAQC platforms with zone-limited gate operations and multi-qubit gates. From this framework, we encode the qubit mapping problem as a nonlinear integer program and solve it using a genetic algorithm, enabling trade-offs between minimizing the total traveled distance and the number of parallel transfer operations. Compared to the state-of-the-art scalable compiler for zoned architectures, our approach consistently finds fewer transfers. Depending on the optimization focus, our method produces shorter traveled distances or fewer parallel transfer operations. This work provides both theoretical guaranties and a practical tool for efficient, architecture-aware quantum circuit compilation. As a result, practitioners can generate hardware-aware mappings that reduce movement-induced errors and better exploit atom transfer parallelism, directly improving execution efficiency on NAQC devices.
Advanced neutral atom quantum systems are being developed by the industry due to its unique hardware features that enable efficient quantum circuit execution. In fact, neutral atom quantum systems are the only platforms that simultaneously support both long-range qubit interactions and native multi-qubit gates. However, the unique characteristics of neutral atom devices limit the applicability of existing qubit mapping methods developed for other quantum devices, and the state-of-the-art mapping approach [13] for neutral atom devices suffers from long runtime and low shuttle scheduling parallelism. We introduce a novel mapping and shuttling framework for neutral atom devices. We first partition the input circuit into a sequence of subcircuits, each associated with a mapping that enables the execution of all gates in the subcircuit. To find these mappings efficiently, we adopt a flexible strategy that dynamically switches between two mapping search methods. Then, for each pair of consecutive mappings, we schedule the shuttling operations required to transition between them and prioritize timing-critical operations to improve parallelism. We performed experiments on three benchmark sets, including circuits with up to 1617 qubits and more than 100,000\mathbf{1 0 0, 0 0 0}100,000 gates. Our proposed framework resulted in high-quality routing solutions and consistently achieves higher fidelity with shorter runtime compared to existing approaches.
Quantum technologies currently struggle to scale beyond moderate scale prototypes and are unable to execute even reasonably sized programs due to prohibitive gate error rates or coherence times. Many software approaches rely on heavy compiler optimization to squeeze extra value from noisy machines but are fundamentally limited by hardware. Alone, these software approaches help to maximize the use of available hardware but cannot overcome the inherent limitations posed by the underlying technology.An alternative approach is to explore the use of new, though potentially less developed, technology as a path towards scalability. In this work we evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a Neutral Atom (NA) architecture. NA systems offer several promising advantages such as long range interactions and native multiqubit gates which reduce communication overhead, overall gate count, and depth for compiled programs. Long range interactions, however, impede parallelism with restriction zones surrounding interacting qubit pairs. We extend current compiler methods to maximize the benefit of these advantages and minimize the cost.Furthermore, atoms in an NA device have the possibility to randomly be lost over the course of program execution which is extremely detrimental to total program execution time as atom arrays are slow to load. When the compiled program is no longer compatible with the underlying topology, we need a fast and efficient coping mechanism. We propose hardware and compiler methods to increase system resilience to atom loss dramatically reducing total computation time by circumventing complete reloads or full recompilation every cycle.
Despite major ongoing advancements in neutral atom hardware technology, there remains limited work in systems-level software tailored to overcoming the challenges of neutral atom quantum computers. In particular, most current neutral atom architectures do not natively support local addressing of single-qubit rotations about an axis in the xy-plane of the Bloch sphere. Instead, these are executed via global beams applied simultaneously to all qubits. While previous neutral atom experimental work has used straightforward synthesis methods to convert short sequences of operations into this native gate set, these methods cannot be incorporated into a systems-level framework nor applied to entire circuits without imposing impractical amounts of serialization. Without sufficient compiler optimizations, decompositions involving global gates will significantly increase circuit depth, gate count, and accumulation of errors. No prior compiler work has addressed this, and adapting existing compilers to solve this problem is nontrivial. In this paper, we present an optimized compiler pipeline that translates an input circuit from an arbitrary gate set into a realistic neutral atom native gate set containing global gates. We focus on decomposition and scheduling passes that minimize the final circuit's global gate count and total global rotation amount. As we show, these costs contribute the most to the circuit's duration and overall error, relative to costs incurred by other gate types. Compared to the unoptimized version of our compiler pipeline, minimizing global gate costs gives up to 4.77x speedup in circuit duration. Compared to the closest prior existing work, we achieve up to 53.8x speedup. For large circuits, we observe a few orders of magnitude improvement in circuit fidelities.
Quantum technologies currently struggle to scale beyond moderate scale prototypes and are unable to execute even reasonably sized programs due to prohibitive gate error rates or coherence times. Many software approaches rely on heavy compiler optimization to squeeze extra value from noisy machines but are fundamentally limited by hardware. Alone, these software approaches help to maximize the use of available hardware but cannot overcome the inherent limitations posed by the underlying technology. An alternative approach is to explore the use of new, though potentially less developed, technology as a path towards scalability. In this work we evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a Neutral Atom (NA) architecture. NA systems offer several promising advantages such as long range interactions and native multiqubit gates which reduce communication overhead, overall gate count, and depth for compiled programs. Long range interactions, however, impede parallelism with restriction zones surrounding interacting qubit pairs. We extend current compiler methods to maximize the benefit of these advantages and minimize the cost. Furthermore, atoms in an NA device have the possibility to randomly be lost over the course of program execution which is extremely detrimental to total program execution time as atom arrays are slow to load. When the compiled program is no longer compatible with the underlying topology, we need a fast and efficient coping mechanism. We propose hardware and compiler methods to increase system resilience to atom loss dramatically reducing total computation time by circumventing complete reloads or full recompilation every cycle.