Search

Stimulation of axons or its avoidance plays a central role for neuroprosthetics and neural-interfaces research. One peculiar example constitutes retinal implants. Retinal implants aim to artificially activate retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) via electrical stimulation. Such stimulation, however, often generates undesired stimulation of RGC axon bundles, which leads to distorted visual percepts. In order to establish stimulation strategies avoiding axonal stimulation it is necessary to image the evoked activity in single axons. In this work we electrically imaged axonal stimulation in ex vivo mouse retina using a high-density CMOS-based microelectrode array. We demonstrate signal propagation tracking via stimulus triggered average during high frequency (100 Hz) sinusoidal electrical stimulation.

Retinal implants allow patients suffering from degenerative retinal diseases to regain visual percepts. Despite considerable effort in developing and improving retinal neuroprostheses in the last decades, the restored vision in patients does not achieve sufficient quality. The elicited percepts do not accurately match the stimulating pixels and therefore the formation of high acuity vision is hindered. One of the main obstacles in epiretinal implants is the concurrent activation of cells close to a stimulating electrode and cells that have their axons traversing the electrode. In this study, we use computational modeling to examine the effect of pulse duration on the selectivity of focal versus non-focal activation. Our results suggest that biphasic pulses in the range of 10-20 microseconds can prevent axonal activation while still reliably activating target neurons.

Millions of people worldwide are diagnosed with retinal dystrophies such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. A retinal prosthesis using organic photovoltaic (OPV) semiconductors is a promising therapeutic device to restore vision to patients at the late onset of the disease. However, an appropriate cytotoxicity approach has to be employed on the OPV materials before using them as retinal implants. In this study, we followed ISO standards to assess the cytotoxicity of D18, Y6, PFN-Br and PDIN individually, and as mixtures of D18/Y6, D18/Y6/PFN-Br and D18/Y6/PDIN. These materials were proven for their high performance as organic solar cells. Human RPE cells were put in direct and indirect contact with these materials to analyze their cytotoxicity by the MTT assay, apoptosis by flow cytometry, and measurements of cell morphology and proliferation by immunofluorescence. We also assessed electrophysiological recordings on mouse retinal explants via microelectrode arrays (MEAs) coated with D18/Y6. In contrast to PFN-Br and PDIN, all in vitro experiments show no cytotoxicity of D18 and Y6 alone or as a D18/Y6 mixture. We conclude that D18/Y6 is safe to be subsequently investigated as a retinal prosthesis.

Millions of people worldwide are diagnosed with retinal dystrophies such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. A retinal prosthesis using organic photovoltaic (OPV) semiconductors is a promising therapeutic device to restore vision to patients at the late onset of the disease. However, an appropriate cytotoxicity approach has to be employed on the OPV materials before using them as retinal implants. In this study, we followed ISO standards to assess the cytotoxicity of D18, Y6, PFN-Br and PDIN individually, and as mixtures of D18/Y6, D18/Y6/PFN-Br and D18/Y6/PDIN. These materials were proven for their high performance as organic solar cells. Human RPE cells were put in direct and indirect contact with these materials to analyze their cytotoxicity by the MTT assay, apoptosis by flow cytometry, and measurements of cell morphology and proliferation by immunofluorescence. We also assessed electrophysiological recordings on mouse retinal explants via microelectrode arrays (MEAs) coated with D18/Y6. In contrast to PFN-Br and PDIN, all in vitro experiments show no cytotoxicity of D18 and Y6 alone or as a D18/Y6 mixture. We conclude that D18/Y6 is safe to be subsequently investigated as a retinal prosthesis.

16 p.-7 fig., Cone photoreceptor cell death in inherited retinal diseases, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), leads to the loss of high acuity and color vision and, ultimately to blindness. In RP, a vast number of mutations perturb the structure and function of rod photoreceptors, while cones remain initially unaffected. Extensive rod loss in advanced stages of the disease triggers cone death by a mechanism that is still largely unknown. Here, we show that secondary cone cell death in animal models for RP is associated with increased activity of histone deacetylates (HDACs). A single intravitreal injection of an HDAC inhibitor at late stages of the disease, when the majority of rods have already degenerated, was sufficient to delay cone death and support long-term cone survival in two mouse models for RP, affected by mutations in the phosphodiesterase 6b gene. Moreover, the surviving cones remained light-sensitive, leading to an improvement in visual function. RNA-seq analysis of protected cones demonstrated that HDAC inhibition initiated multi-level protection via regulation of different pro-survival pathways,including MAPK, PI3K-Akt, and autophagy. This study suggests a unique opportunity for targeted pharmacological protection of secondary dying cones by HDAC inhibition and creates hope to maintain vision in RP patients even in advanced disease stages., This work was supported by the ProRetina foundation,the Kerstan Foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFGTR 1238/4-1), Swiss National Science Foundation (31003A_173008),BMBF (FKZ: 01EK1613E), and GC2018-098557-B-I00 from MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE. RGS is a recipient of a JIN grant RTI2018-098990- J-I00 from MCIU, Spain.

The most promising quantum algorithms require quantum processors that host millions of quantum bits when targeting practical applications1. A key challenge towards large-scale quantum computation is the interconnect complexity. In current solid-state qubit implementations, an important interconnect bottleneck appears between the quantum chip in a dilution refrigerator and the room-temperature electronics. Advanced lithography supports the fabrication of both control electronics and qubits in silicon using technology compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS)2. When the electronics are designed to operate at cryogenic temperatures, they can ultimately be integrated with the qubits on the same die or package, overcoming the ‘wiring bottleneck’3–6. Here we report a cryogenic CMOS control chip operating at 3 kelvin, which outputs tailored microwave bursts to drive silicon quantum bits cooled to 20 millikelvin. We first benchmark the control chip and find an electrical performance consistent with qubit operations of 99.99 per cent fidelity, assuming ideal qubits. Next, we use it to coherently control actual qubits encoded in the spin of single electrons confined in silicon quantum dots7–9 and find that the cryogenic control chip achieves the same fidelity as commercial instruments at room temperature. Furthermore, we demonstrate the capabilities of the control chip by programming a number of benchmarking protocols, as well as the Deutsch–Josza algorithm10, on a two-qubit quantum processor. These results open up the way towards a fully integrated, scalable silicon-based quantum computer. A cryogenic CMOS control chip operating at 3 K is used to demonstrate coherent control and simple algorithms on silicon qubits operating at 20 mK.

Brain function relies on circuits of spiking neurons with synapses playing the key role of merging transmission with memory storage and processing. Electronics has made important advances to emulate neurons and synapses and brain-computer interfacing concepts that interlink brain and brain-inspired devices are beginning to materialise. We report on memristive links between brain and silicon spiking neurons that emulate transmission and plasticity properties of real synapses. A memristor paired with a metal-thin film titanium oxide microelectrode connects a silicon neuron to a neuron of the rat hippocampus. Memristive plasticity accounts for modulation of connection strength, while transmission is mediated by weighted stimuli through the thin film oxide leading to responses that resemble excitatory postsynaptic potentials. The reverse brain-to-silicon link is established through a microelectrode-memristor pair. On these bases, we demonstrate a three-neuron brain-silicon network where memristive synapses undergo long-term potentiation or depression driven by neuronal firing rates.

Brain function relies on circuits of spiking neurons with synapses playing the key role of merging transmission with memory storage and processing. Electronics has made important advances to emulate neurons and synapses and brain-computer interfacing concepts that interlink brain and brain-inspired devices are beginning to materialise. We report on memristive links between brain and silicon spiking neurons that emulate transmission and plasticity properties of real synapses. A memristor paired with a metal-thin film titanium oxide microelectrode connects a silicon neuron to a neuron of the rat hippocampus. Memristive plasticity accounts for modulation of connection strength, while transmission is mediated by weighted stimuli through the thin film oxide leading to responses that resemble excitatory postsynaptic potentials. The reverse brain-to-silicon link is established through a microelectrode-memristor pair. On these bases, we demonstrate a three-neuron brain-silicon network where memristive synapses undergo long-term potentiation or depression driven by neuronal firing rates., Scientific Reports, 10 (1), ISSN:2045-2322

Solid-state qubits integrated on semiconductor substrates currently require at least one wire from every qubit to the control electronics, leading to a so-called wiring bottleneck for scaling. Demultiplexing via on-chip circuitry offers an effective strategy to overcome this bottleneck. In the case of gate-defined quantum dot arrays, specific static voltages need to be applied to many gates simultaneously to realize electron confinement. When a charge-locking structure is placed between the quantum device and the demultiplexer, the voltage can be maintained locally. In this study, we implement a switched-capacitor circuit for charge-locking and use it to float the plunger gate of a single quantum dot. Parallel plate capacitors, transistors, and quantum dot devices are monolithically fabricated on a Si/SiGe-based substrate to avoid complex off-chip routing. We experimentally study the effects of the capacitor and transistor size on the voltage accuracy of the floating node. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the electrochemical potential of the quantum dot can follow a 100 Hz pulse signal while the dot is partially floating, which is essential for applying this strategy in qubit experiments.

Building a large-scale quantum computer requires the co-optimization of both the quantum bits (qubits) and their control electronics. By operating the CMOS control circuits at cryogenic temperatures (cryo-CMOS), and hence in close proximity to the cryogenic solid-state qubits, a compact quantum-computing system can be achieved, thus promising scalability to the large number of qubits required in a practical application. This work presents a cryo-CMOS microwave signal generator for frequency-multiplexed control of $4\times 32$ qubits (32 qubits per RF output). A digitally intensive architecture offering full programmability of phase, amplitude, and frequency of the output microwave pulses and a wideband RF front end operating from 2 to 20 GHz allow targeting both spin qubits and transmons. The controller comprises a qubit-phase-tracking direct digital synthesis (DDS) back end for coherent qubit control and a single-sideband (SSB) RF front end optimized for minimum leakage between the qubit channels. Fabricated in Intel 22-nm FinFET technology, it achieves a 48-dB SNR and 45-dB spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) in a 1-GHz data bandwidth when operating at 3 K, thus enabling high-fidelity qubit control. By exploiting the on-chip 4096-instruction memory, the capability to translate quantum algorithms to microwave signals has been demonstrated by coherently controlling a spin qubit at both 14 and 18 GHz.

Multi-tenant virtualized infrastructures allow cloud providers to minimize costs through workload consolidation. One of the largest costs is power consumption, which is challenging to understand in heterogeneous environments. We propose a power modeling methodology that tackles this complexity using a divide-and-conquer approach. Our results outperform previous research work, achieving a relative error of 2% on average and under 4% in almost all cases. Models are portable across similar architectures, enabling predictions of power consumption before migrating a tenant to a different hardware platform. Moreover, we show the models allow us to evaluate colocations of tenants to reduce overall consumption.

Cone photoreceptor cell death in inherited retinal diseases, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), leads to the loss of high acuity and color vision and ultimately to blindness. In RP, a vast number of mutations perturb the structure and function of rod photoreceptors while cones remain initially unaffected. Cone death follows rod death secondarily due to increased oxidative stress, inflammation, and loss of structural and nutritional support provided by rods. Here, we show that secondary cone cell death in animal models for RP was associated with an increased activity of histone deacetylates (HDACs). A single intravitreal injection of an HDAC inhibitor at a late stage of the disease, when majority of rods have already degenerated, was sufficient to delay cone death and support long-term cone survival. Moreover, the surviving cones remained light sensitive and initiated light-driven ganglion cell responses. RNA-seq analysis of protected cones demonstrated that HDAC inhibition led to multi-level protectionviaregulation of different pro-survival pathways, including MAPK, PI3K-Akt, and autophagy. This study suggests a unique possibility for a targeted pharmacological protection of both primary degenerating rods and secondary dying cones by HDAC inhibition and creates hope to maintain vision in RP patients independent of the disease stage.

Human cerebrospinal fluid (hCSF) have proven advantageous over conventional medium when culturing both rodent and human brain tissue. Increased excitability and synchronicity, similar to the active state exclusively recorded in vivo, reported in rodent slice and cell-cultures with hCSF as recording medium, indicates properties of the hCSF not matched by the artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) commonly used for electrophysiological recording. To evaluate the possible importance of using hCSF as electrophysiological recording medium of human brain tissue, we compared the general excitability in ex vivo human brain tissue slice cultures during perfusion with hCSF and aCSF. For measuring the general activity from a majority of neurons within neocortical and hippocampal human ex vivo slices we used a microelectrode array (MEA) recording technique with 252 electrodes covering an area of 3.2 x 3.2 mm2 and a second CMOS-based MEA with 4225 electrodes on a 2 x 2 mm2 area for detailed mapping of action potential waveforms. We found that hCSF increase the number of active neurons and the firing rate of the neurons in the slices as well as increasing the numbers of bursts while leaving the duration of the bursts unchanged. Interestingly, not only an increase in the overall activity in the slices was observed, but a reconfiguration of the network functionality could be detected with specific activation and inactivation of subpopulations of neuronal ensembles. In conclusion, hCSF is an important component to consider for future human tissue studies, especially for experiments designed to mimic the in vivo situation.

Objective. Most neuroprosthetic implants employ pulsatile square-wave electrical stimuli, which are significantly different from physiological inter-neuronal communication. In case of retinal neuroprosthetics, which use a certain type of pulsatile stimuli, reliable object and contrast discrimination by implanted blind patients remained challenging. Here we investigated to what extent simple objects can be discriminated from the output of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) upon sinusoidal stimulation. Approach. Spatially confined objects were formed by different combinations of 1024 stimulating microelectrodes. The RGC activity in the ex vivo retina of photoreceptor-degenerated mouse, of healthy mouse or of primate was recorded simultaneously using an interleaved recording microelectrode array implemented in a CMOS-based chip. Main results. We report that application of sinusoidal electrical stimuli (40 Hz) in epiretinal configuration instantaneously and reliably modulates the RGC activity in spatially confined areas at low stimulation threshold charge densities (40 nC mm−2). Classification of overlapping but spatially displaced objects (1° separation) was achieved by distinct spiking activity of selected RGCs. A classifier (regularized logistic regression) discriminated spatially displaced objects (size: 5.5° or 3.5°) with high accuracy (90% or 62%). Stimulation with low artificial contrast (10%) encoded by different stimulus amplitudes generated RGC activity, which was classified with an accuracy of 80% for large objects (5.5°). Significance. We conclude that time-continuous smooth-wave stimulation provides robust, localized neuronal activation in photoreceptor-degenerated retina, which may enable future artificial vision at high temporal, spatial and contrast resolution.

The ability to manipulate electron spins with voltage-dependent electric fields is key to the operation of quantum spintronics devices, such as spin-based semiconductor qubits. A natural approach to electrical spin control exploits the spin–orbit coupling (SOC) inherently present in all materials. So far, this approach could not be applied to electrons in silicon, due to their extremely weak SOC. Here we report an experimental realization of electrically driven electron–spin resonance in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanowire quantum dot device. The underlying driving mechanism results from an interplay between SOC and the multi-valley structure of the silicon conduction band, which is enhanced in the investigated nanowire geometry. We present a simple model capturing the essential physics and use tight-binding simulations for a more quantitative analysis. We discuss the relevance of our findings to the development of compact and scalable electron–spin qubits in silicon. Weak spin–orbit effects in silicon can be exploited to electrically drive electron-spin resonance in a silicon nanowire quantum dot device with low-symmetry confinement potential. Andrea Corna and colleagues at Grenoble’s CEA and University Grenoble Alpes achieved this by fabricating a silicon nanowire device over a silicon-on-insulator wafer, on which the gate accumulation voltages can define two corner quantum dots. Quantum confinement allows the coupling of spin and valley degrees of freedom via spin–orbit coupling, despite its inherent weakness in silicon, when the energy splitting between the valley energy eigenstates matches the magnetic field-induced Zeeman spin splitting. The observation of electric-dipole spin-valley resonance demonstrates the potential of spin–orbit coupling for realizing electric-field-mediated spin control, which will be crucial for large-scale integration of silicon-based spin qubits.

Abst ract We pres ent the rece nt adva nces mad e tow ards the reali zati on of elect ron and hole qua ntu m bit devi ces on a Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology. Such devices are obtained by slightly modifying our standard process flow for nanowire transistor fabrication. Recent developments on electrical control of the qubits are reviewed.

Qubits can be made out of a variety of experimental platforms, fig. 1. Small processors have already been demonstrated in trapped ions and superconductors but in both cases, the constraints for coherent manipulation and the effective large size of the qubits including all quantum functionalities are hardly compatible with very large-scale architecture. When it comes to the crucial issue of large-scale integration, Si spin qubits are well positioned due to their long coherence times and compatibility with semiconductor fabrication techniques. Indeed, dephasing times of the order of 1s have been achieved in Si-based spin qubits and single-qubit gate fidelities are high enough for scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Autonomicity is a golden feature when dealing with a high level of complexity. This complexity can be tackled partitioning huge systems in small autonomous modules, i.e., agents. Each agent then needs to be capable of extracting knowledge from its environment and to learn from it, in order to fulfill its goals: this could not be achieved without proper modeling techniques that allow each agent to gaze beyond its sensors. Unfortunately, the simplicity of agents and the complexity of modeling do not fit together, thus demanding for a third party to bridge the gap. Given the opportunities in the field, the main contributions of this work are twofold: (1) we propose a general methodology to model resource consumption trends and (2) we implemented it into MARC, a Cloud-service platform that produces Models-as-a-Service, thus relieving self-aware agents from the burden of building their custom modeling framework. In order to validate the proposed methodology, we set up a custom simulator to generate a wide spectrum of controlled traces: this allowed us to verify the correctness of our framework from a general and comprehensive point of view.

Silicon, the main constituent of microprocessor chips, is emerging as a promising material for the realization of future quantum processors. Leveraging its well-established complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology would be a clear asset to the development of scalable quantum computing architectures and to their co-integration with classical control hardware. Here we report a silicon quantum bit (qubit) device made with an industry-standard fabrication process. The device consists of a two-gate, p-type transistor with an undoped channel. At low temperature, the first gate defines a quantum dot encoding a hole spin qubit, the second one a quantum dot used for the qubit read-out. All electrical, two-axis control of the spin qubit is achieved by applying a phase-tunable microwave modulation to the first gate. The demonstrated qubit functionality in a basic transistor-like device constitutes a promising step towards the elaboration of scalable spin qubit geometries in a readily exploitable CMOS platform., Silicon is a promising material for realization of quantum processors, particularly as it could be naturally integrated with classical control hardware based on CMOS technology. Here the authors report a silicon qubit device made with an industry-standard fabrication process on a CMOS platform.

We report on dual-gate reflectometry in a metal-oxide-semiconductor double-gate silicon transistor operating at low temperature as a double quantum dot device. The reflectometry setup consists of two radio-frequency resonators respectively connected to the two gate electrodes. By simultaneously measuring their dispersive response, we obtain the complete charge stability diagram of the device. Charge transitions between the two quantum dots and between each quantum dot and either the source or the drain contact are detected through phase shifts in the reflected radio-frequency signals. At finite bias, reflectometry allows probing charge transitions to excited quantum-dot states thereby enabling direct access to the energy level spectra of the quantum dots. Interestingly, we find that in the presence of charge transport across the two dots the reflectometry signatures of interdot transitions display a dip-peak structure containing quantitative information on the charge relaxation rates in the double quantum dot., 7 pages, 4 figures

We report the first quantum bit (qubit) device implemented on a foundry-compatible Si CMOS platform. The device, fabricated using SOI NanoWire MOSFET technology, is in essence a compact two-gate pFET. The qubit is encoded in the spin degree of freedom of a hole Quantum Dot (QD) defined by one of the Gates. Coherent spin manipulation is performed by means of an RF E-Field signal applied to the Gate itself. By demonstrating qubit functionality in a conventional transistor-like layout and process flow, this result bears relevance for the future up-scaling of qubit architectures, including the opportunity of their co-integration with “classical” Si CMOS control circuitry.

The definition of the ampere will change in the next few years. This electrical base unit of the S.I. will be redefined by fixing the value of the charge quantum, i.e., the electron charge e. As a result electron pumps will become the natural device for the mise en pratique of this new ampere. In the last years semiconductor electron pumps have emerged as the most advanced systems, both in terms of speed and precision. Another figure of merit for a metrological device would be its ability to be predictible and shared. For that reason a mature fabrication process would certainly be an advantage. In this article we present electron pumps made within a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) research facility on 300 mm silicon-on-insulator wafers, using advanced microelectronics tools and processes. We give an overview of the whole integration scheme and emphasize the fabrication steps which differ from the normal CMOS route.

The first few decades of the previous century have witnessed a revolution in the physical sciences due to the advent of quantum mechanics. Now, a hundred years later, quantum mechanics is about to drive a new revolution in technology. As a matter of fact, quantum mechanical phenomena have already found numerous applications in different areas (metrology, sensing, imaging, etc.). Atomic clocks and superconducting quantum interference devices (used for magnetometry), are just a few examples of commercial quantum devices. Yet these examples can be regarded as basic-level quantum technology. The next step is to exploit the inherent complexity of quantum systems, whose origin lies in the basic principle of superposition, namely the property of a quantum object to be simultaneously in two or more possible states. If we consider the simplest case of a quantum particle, e.g. an electron, with two possible states, say state ‘0’ and state ‘1’, the superposition principle allows for that particle to be in both 0 and 1 at the same time (see Fig. 1 and corresponding caption). In a way, a quantum particle can thus encode much more information than a classical device (e.g. a transistor) with only two possible states. A second key property of quantum particles is their ability to couple among each other without necessarily requiring reciprocal interaction. This property, known as quantum entanglement together with the principle of superposition, forms the key elements of quantum information processing. They result in a naturally built-in parallelism that could be exploited to achieve computational powers unaffordable by any classical computer.

We present recent progress towards the implementation of a scalable quantum processor based on fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) technology. In particular, we discuss an approach where the elementary bits of quantum information - so-called qubits - are encoded in the spin degree of freedom of gate-confined holes in p-type devices. We show how a hole-spin can be efficiently manipulated by means of a microwave excitation applied to the corresponding confining gate. The hole spin state can be read out and reinitialized through a Pauli blockade mechanism. The studied devices are derived from silicon nanowire field-effect transistors. We discuss their prospects for scalability and, more broadly, the potential advantages of FDSOI technology., Comment: 4 pages, 13 figures, Invited contribution at IEDM 2016

Objective Retinal prostheses have shown promising results in restoring some visual perception to blind patients but successful identification of objects of different size remains a challenge. Here we investigated electrode-size specific stimulation thresholds and their variability for subretinal electrical stimulation. Our findings indicate the range of charge densities required to achieve identification of small objects and the object-size-specific scaling of stimulation threshold. Approach Using biphasic voltage-limited current stimuli provided by a light-sensitive microchip, we determined threshold charge densities for stimulation with variable electrode sizes. The stimulated activation of the retinal network was identified by recording the spiking of retinal ganglion cells in photoreceptor-degenerated mouse rd10 retinas. Stimulation thresholds were determined for cells with saturating stimulus response relationships (SRRs) but not for cells characterized by monotonically increasing or decreasing SRRs. Main results Stimulation thresholds estimated in rd10 retinas ranged between 100-900 µC cm-2 for stimulation with small electrodes (30 µm diameter). Threshold charge density decreased with increasing electrode size and plateaued at 20 µC cm-2 for an electrode diameter larger than 300 µm. This trend of decreasing threshold down to a plateau value was confirmed in wild-type mouse retina suggesting an underlying physiological source. Significance Our results suggest the following guidelines for retinal prosthetics employing biphasic current pulses. The encoding of small objects may be achieved through the activation of a confined set of different retinal ganglion cells, with individual stimulation thresholds spanning a wide range of charge densities. The encoding of increasing object sizes may be achieved by decreasing stimulation charge density.

For the first time, we report the operation of Single Electron Transistors (SETs) and Single Hole transistors (SHTs) up to 350K from Q-gate CMOS transistors at ultimate scaling. These results are obtained with gate lengths (L G ) scaled down to 10nm and ∼3.4nm diameter silicon nanowires (Si-NWs). The SETs and SHTs exhibit Coulomb oscillations in the nanoampere range up to 350 K which can be amplified to the milliampere range when coupled with conventional metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Such a hybrid circuit is used further as negative differential resistance or as literal gate for logic. These demonstrations of SHT-FET coupling with L G =10nm operating at 350 K should invigorate the community on the future of single-electron devices and their circuit integration.

In the last decade we have witnessed the birth and dramatic growth of mobile devices, from cellular-to smart-phones. Despite the huge amount of information achievable from an always-connected reality, researchers that work in the mobile devices field fight against the impossibility to explore, inspect and test their work on such a vast set of possible environments, use case scenarios, hardware and software platforms the smart mobile world is composed of. This pushed the need of a wide open dataset of real world data coming from devices in their real usage context, properly anonymized and conveniently organized to be searchable and accessible. In this paper, we present a platform that brings such a dataset to researchers of the next generation of mobile devices.

International audience; We report the observation of an atomic like behavior from T = 4.2 K up to room temperature in n- and p-type Omega-gate silicon nanowire (NW) transistors. For that purpose, we modified the design of a NW transistor and introduced long spacers between the source/drain and the channel in order to separate the channel from the electrodes. The channel was made extremely small (3.4 nm in diameter with 10 nm gate length) with a thick gate oxide (7 nm) in order to enhance the Coulomb repulsion between carriers, which can be as large as 200 meV when surface roughness promotes charge confinement. Parasitic stochastic Coulomb blockade effect can be eliminated in our devices by choosing proper control voltages. Moreover, the quantum dot can be tuned so that the resonant current at T = 4.2 K exceeds that at room temperature.

The operation of hybrid circuits consisting of a single hole transistor coupled to a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) is demonstrated at 350 K. The devices are designed at ultimate scaling with complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology on 300 mm diameter silicon on insulator wafers using deep ultra-violet lithography. Coulomb blockade oscillations up to 350 K are measured from silicon nanowire transistors with 20 nm Ω-gate length and diameter under 5 nm. These oscillations are exploited to produce inverter/amplifier, literal gate, negative differential resistance and memory loop circuits for multivalued (MV) logic and MV memory applications, via hybridization with MOSFET in SETMOS configuration. The fabrication and the operation of these SHT-MOSFET hybrid circuits at high temperature should spur single charge transistor integration into circuits for innovative applications in nanoelectronics.

International audience; We show how to measure and manipulate a single spin in a CMOS device fabricated in a preindustrial 300 nm CMOS foundry. The device can be used as a spin quantum bit working at very low temperature. The spin manipulation is done by a microwave electric field applied directly on a gate. The presented results are a proof-of-principle demonstration of the possibility to define qubits by means of conventional industrial fabrication processes.

The most promising quantum algorithms require quantum processors that host millions of quantum bits when targeting practical applications(1). A key challenge towards large-scale quantum computation is the interconnect complexity. In current solid-state qubit implementations, an important interconnect bottleneck appears between the quantum chip in a dilution refrigerator and the room-temperature electronics. Advanced lithography supports the fabrication of both control electronics and qubits in silicon using technology compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS)(2). When the electronics are designed to operate at cryogenic temperatures, they can ultimately be integrated with the qubits on the same die or package, overcoming the 'wiring bottleneck'(3-6). Here we report a cryogenic CMOS control chip operating at 3 kelvin, which outputs tailored microwave bursts to drive silicon quantum bits cooled to 20 millikelvin. We first benchmark the control chip and find an electrical performance consistent with qubit operations of 99.99 per cent fidelity, assuming ideal qubits. Next, we use it to coherently control actual qubits encoded in the spin of single electrons confined in silicon quantum dots(7-9) and find that the cryogenic control chip achieves the same fidelity as commercial instruments at room temperature. Furthermore, we demonstrate the capabilities of the control chip by programming a number of benchmarking protocols, as well as the Deutsch-Josza algorithm(10), on a two-qubit quantum processor. These results open up the way towards a fully integrated, scalable silicon-based quantum computer., A cryogenic CMOS control chip operating at 3 K is used to demonstrate coherent control and simple algorithms on silicon qubits operating at 20 mK.