Chips & Quantum Computing terms
27 Chips & Quantum Computing terms explained in plain English.
- Advanced packaging (CoWoS)Advanced packaging is the set of techniques that combine multiple chips, such as a processor and stacks of high-bandwidth memory, into one tightly connected package.
- ASICAn ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) is a chip designed to do one specific job extremely well, such as mining Bitcoin, decoding video, or running AI models.
- Backside power deliveryBackside power delivery is a chip manufacturing technique that moves the wires supplying power to transistors from the top of the chip to the underside.
- ChipletA chiplet is a smaller chip designed to work together with other chiplets inside a single package, so a processor is built from several pieces instead of one large slab of silicon.
- CHIPS and Science ActThe CHIPS and Science Act is a 2022 US law that provides about $52.7 billion for semiconductor manufacturing, research, and workforce programs, plus tax credits for building chip factories in the United States.
- DecoherenceDecoherence is the process by which a qubit loses its quantum properties, such as superposition and entanglement, because it interacts with its surroundings: heat, vibration, stray electromagnetic fields, or even its own control signals.
- Dennard scalingDennard scaling is the observation that as transistors shrink, their power density stays roughly constant, so smaller transistors can run faster without making chips hotter.
- EUV lithographyExtreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is the manufacturing technique that prints the smallest features on today's most advanced chips, using light with a wavelength of just 13.5 nanometres.
- Foundry vs fablessA fabless chip company designs semiconductors but outsources manufacturing, while a foundry manufactures chips designed by other companies.
- Gate-all-around transistor (GAAFET)A gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) is a transistor design in which the gate, the part that switches current on and off, surrounds the channel on all sides.
- Grover's algorithmGrover's algorithm is a quantum algorithm that searches an unstructured list of possibilities in roughly the square root of the time a classical computer would need.
- Harvest now, decrypt laterHarvest now, decrypt later (HNDL) is the threat that attackers are collecting encrypted data today, planning to decrypt it once quantum computers can break current public-key encryption.
- High-bandwidth memory (HBM)High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is a type of memory made by stacking several DRAM chips on top of each other and placing them right next to a processor, connected by thousands of tiny wires.
- Logical qubitA logical qubit is an error-protected qubit created by combining many physical qubits with quantum error correction.
- Neutral-atom quantum computingNeutral-atom quantum computing uses individual uncharged atoms, held in place by focused laser beams called optical tweezers, as qubits.
- NISQNISQ, short for 'noisy intermediate-scale quantum,' describes the current era of quantum computers: machines with tens to around a thousand qubits that are too error-prone for full error correction.
- NPU (neural processing unit)A neural processing unit (NPU) is a chip, or part of a chip, designed specifically to run AI workloads efficiently, such as recognizing faces, blurring video backgrounds, or running small language models on a device.
- Photonic quantum computingPhotonic quantum computing uses photons, particles of light, as qubits.
- Quantum annealingQuantum annealing is a specialized type of quantum computing designed to find low-energy solutions to optimization problems, such as scheduling or routing, by letting a quantum system settle into its best configuration.
- Quantum entanglementQuantum entanglement is a link between particles or qubits that makes their measurement results correlated more strongly than any classical system allows, even when they're far apart.
- Quantum error correctionQuantum error correction (QEC) is the set of techniques that protect quantum information by encoding one 'logical' qubit across many physical qubits, so errors can be detected and corrected during a computation.
- Quantum gateA quantum gate is an operation that changes the state of qubits, the quantum equivalent of logic gates in regular computers.
- RISC-VRISC-V (pronounced 'risk-five') is an open, royalty-free instruction set architecture, the basic language that software uses to talk to a processor.
- Shor's algorithmShor's algorithm is a quantum algorithm that can factor large numbers and solve related problems exponentially faster than any known classical method.
- Superconducting vs trapped-ion qubitsSuperconducting qubits and trapped-ion qubits are the two most mature ways to build quantum computers.
- SuperpositionSuperposition is the quantum property that lets a qubit exist in a combination of 0 and 1 at the same time, with each possibility weighted by a value called an amplitude, until it's measured.
- Wafer yieldWafer yield is the percentage of chips on a silicon wafer that come out working after manufacturing.