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Pulse-level Programming Interface for Superconducting Processor Control

Jordi Valls Conesa, Flavie Le Bars, Ely Farrés Palomaras, Oriol De Miguel Ribas, Baldo Luis Najera Santos, Juan José Martínez Rodríguez, Vyron Vasileiadis

Published Aug 25, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This work presents a pulse-level programming interface for superconducting processor control using QProgram, a hardware-agnostic framework for digital and analog quantum systems. The approach combines programmable pulse sequences with a structured description of the laboratory setup, integrating instrument configuration, calibrated device information, pulse optimization, compilation, and execution. The methodology supports waveform generation, measurement, parameter sweeps, and synchronization, illustrated through a qubit coherence experiment. Digital predistortion compensates for signal distortions along the control lines, while linear crosstalk compensation enables control in physical flux coordinates. An experimental example demonstrates crosstalk correction between the two flux loops of a tunable fluxonium qubit. The contribution also highlights how this architecture supports a reusable library of characterization experiments and forms the foundation of SeQtante, an automated tool for calibrating and benchmarking digital and analog quantum systems.

DOI
10.5281/zenodo.23018944

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This work presents a pulse-level programming interface for superconducting processor control using QProgram, a hardware-agnostic framework for digital and analog quantum systems. The approach combines programmable pulse sequences with a structured description of the laboratory setup, integrating instrument configuration, calibrated device information, pulse optimization, compilation, and execution. The methodology supports waveform generation, measurement, parameter sweeps, and synchronization, illustrated through a qubit coherence experiment. Digital predistortion compensates for signal distortions along the control lines, while linear crosstalk compensation enables control in physical flux coordinates. An experimental example demonstrates crosstalk correction between the two flux loops of a tunable fluxonium qubit. The contribution also highlights how this architecture supports a reusable library of characterization experiments and forms the foundation of SeQtante, an automated tool for calibrating and benchmarking digital and analog quantum systems.
Every quantum operation is ultimately a timed analog control signal, yet pulse-level experiment code usually tangles the science of an experiment together with one vendor’s software stack and one qubit’s wiring. The protocol, the sweeps, and the calibration all end up bound to the machine they were written on, so moving to new hardware often means rewriting the experiment from scratch. QProgram keeps these two concerns apart. You describe what should happen, and the platform decides how to run it on real instruments. A platform is any quantum control system that speaks one small, standard interface. An experiment written this way becomes a portable, inspectable program object rather than a throwaway script. It saves to a round-trip-safe .qp text file, moves to another chip without a rewrite, and is checked against each platform’s capabilities with an explicit host-side and real-time execution plan before anything runs, while new vendor operations can be added without touching the core.
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Scaling superconducting quantum processors is increasingly constrained by the wiring, heat load, and calibration overhead associated with delivering high-resolution analog signals from room temperature to qubits at millikelvin temperature. Here we demonstrate a superconducting digital-to-analog converter (DAC) integrated with high-coherence fluxonium qubits in a multi-chip module architecture. The DACs generate persistent analog flux signals for tuning qubit parameters and are programmed deterministically using single-flux-quantum (SFQ) pulses, providing a digital interface compatible with established SFQ routing and demultiplexing technologies. Operating at millikelvin temperature, the DACs enable in-situ tuning of fluxonium qubits without measurable degradation of qubit coherence. The presented device provides a static control primitive for flux-tunable qubits, enabling parameter homogenization and eliminating the need for individual room-temperature DC bias lines. These results establish SFQ-programmable millikelvin DACs as a building block for digitally controlled superconducting quantum processors.
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.
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.
Flux-tunable superconducting qubits rely on fast flux control pulses to implement two-qubit entangling quantum gates, a key building block for quantum algorithms. However, distortion effects introduced by non-ideal control electronics, parasitic components, and the cryogenic quantum chip response can all degrade the gate fidelity. We present a digital predistortion (DPD) framework for characterizing and then compensating for these distortions using a combination of infinite impulse response (IIR) and finite impulse response (FIR) filters. Experiments on a flux-tunable quantum processing unit (QPU) demonstrate a successful correction of step-response distortions on the flux-control line, with a compensated control signal showing only sub-percent deviations from the ideal target linear behavior. The demonstrated method enables automated rapid calibration of flux control channels for superconducting QPUs.