Compute and sensing · Waiting on a material
Superconducting logic
Switching at a fraction of the energy of silicon. Demonstrated for decades, never volume-made.
The record behind superconducting logic
Superconducting logic and what it costs to switch · PMCHow single-flux-quantum logic works
A single-flux-quantum circuit represents a bit as one quantum of magnetic flux moving between Josephson junctions. Switching costs a small fraction of what a silicon gate costs and the circuits clock in the tens of gigahertz. Working processors have been built and measured. The physics has never once been the obstacle here, which is what makes this the most frustrating entry on the list.
What is stopping superconducting logic
Memory and manufacturing. There is no dense, fast, cryogenic memory in any material to put beside the logic, so the architecture spends its energy advantage moving data out to warm memory, and no foundry runs Josephson junctions at the volumes and yields a product would need. The thing that is missing is a material and an ecosystem at once.
What a better material would change for superconducting logic
Two things would have to arrive together: a dense cryogenic memory, in any material, and a foundry willing to run junctions at volume. Neither is a physics problem. Neither has happened in the thirty years the logic itself has worked.
Conductors used in superconducting logic
Near superconducting logic, in compute and sensing
SuperMatics is a platform infrastructure company for superconducting devices: software that finds the material and the process, lab work that makes and measures it, and pilot manufacturing with industrial partners.If you are working on something in this field and a material is what stands in the way, tell us about it.