Fabrication Process of Single Flux Quantum ALU by using Nb Trilayer

Nb Trilayer를 사용한 단자속양자 논리연산자의 제작공정

For more than two decades Nb trilayer ($Nb/Al_2O_3/Nb$) process has been serving as the most stable fabrication process of the Josephson junction integrated circuits. Fast development of semiconductor fabrication technology has been possible with the recent advancement of the fabrication equipments. In this work, we took an advantage of advanced fabrication equipments in developing a superconducting Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) by using Nb trilayers. The ALU is a core element of a computer processor that performs arithmetic and logic operations on the operands in computer instruction words. We used DC magnetron sputtering technique for metal depositions and RF sputtering technique for $SiO_2$ depositions. Various dry etching techniques were used to define the Josephson junction areas and film pattering processes. Our Nb films were stress free and showed the $T{_c}'s$ of about 9 K. To enhance the step coverage of Nb films we used reverse bias powered DC magnetron sputtering technique. The fabricated 1-bit, 2-bit, and 4-bit ALU circuits were tested at a few kilo-hertz clock frequency as well as a few tens giga-hertz clock frequency, respectively. Our 1-bit ALU operated correctly at up to 40 GHz clock frequency, and the 4-bit ALU operated at up to 5 GHz clock frequency.