Laniakea QPU: Building a Pure-Play Quantum Foundry the “TSMC Way”

Laniakea QPU will operate as a pure-play quantum foundry: zero spend on brand marketing, maximal reinvestment in R&D, process technology, fabrication, advanced packaging, and yield engineering. The product is the process. Credibility is earned exclusively through technical execution, device reliability, and on-time capacity ramps.

Strategic Pillars

1. Process Leadership (R&D First)

   • Materials: low-loss dielectrics, high-purity superconducting films (Al, Nb, NbTiN), sub-ppm TLS defect control, ultra-low-roughness substrates, trench passivation.

   • Device Physics: high-coherence qubit primitives (transmons/fluxonium/spins/photonic), tunable couplers with minimized crosstalk, cryo-matched interconnects.

   • Metrology: cryogenic wafer-level VNA, resonator-Q screening, defect density vs. T₁/T₂ correlation maps, in-line ellipsometry/XRD/TOF-SIMS tied to coherence yield.

2. Manufacturing Excellence (Fab)

   • Process Nodes: “Q-nodes” defined by coherence and variability, not geometry—e.g., Q65 (65-nm backend, median T₁ ≥ 200 μs), Q45, Q28.

   • SPC: tight control of Josephson-junction resistance distributions, across-wafer uniformity < 3% (1σ), line-edge roughness budgets tied to dephasing models.

   • Copy Exactly: golden recipes, mask data management, < 24 h excursion response.

3. Advanced Packaging (Integration)

   • 2.5D/3D: superconducting RDL; TSVs compatible with mK gradients; micro-bump or hybrid bonding to cryo-CMOS/readout ASICs.

   • Heterogeneous Stacks: qubit die + RF/readout die + control die under a common lid; photonic I/O via edge couplers for inter-module networking.

   • Thermal/EM: phonon engineering, package-level magnetic shielding, vibration isolation, low-loss coax and superconducting interposers.

4. Yield & Reliability (Ops)

   • Definitions: Coherence yield = % of qubits with T₁/T₂ above spec; Connectivity yield = % of functional couplers; System yield = device pass for target error rates.

   • ALT: thermal cycling (300 K ↔ 10 mK), flux-noise aging, junction electromigration stress, delamination screens.

   • CI: DFSS for new device families; Cp/Cpk targets on junction RA products; automated Pareto of loss mechanisms.

5. Customer Engagement Without Marketing

   • No ads, no campaigns. Only: peer-reviewed papers, patents, open process-design kits (Q-PDKs), published PPA-style coherence/yield dashboards, predictable delivery.

   • Business model: pure-play foundry + advanced packaging + test. Reference flows are provided; no vertical competition with customers.

Operating Model

• Org Split

  • R&D: device physics, materials, simulation (EM/TCAD), error-budget modeling.

  • Manufacturing: litho/etch/junction lines, CMP, cleans, in-line metrology, copy-exact transfer.

  • Packaging & Test: 2.5D/3D integration, cryo-interconnects, wafer- and module-level cryo test.

  • Yield & Reliability: telemetry, SPC, failure analysis, quick-turn DOE.

• DSI Telemetry Backbone

  • Unified Digital Super-Intelligence (DSI) layer streams provenance from wafer lot → die → package → rack: coherence maps, readout fidelities, gate-error histograms, MTBF, and SPC alerts. DSI powers root-cause analytics, recipe tuning, and capacity planning.

• Cadence

  • Annual Q-node shrinks (coherence/variability improvements), quarterly mask revisions, monthly SPC packs to customers.

Technology Roadmap (Illustrative)

• H1: Q65 node, 128–256-qubit tiles, median T₁ ≥ 200 μs, 2.5D package with cryo-CMOS readout.

• H2: Q45 node, improved junction uniformity, 512–1k-qubit tiles, hybrid-bonded qubit-to-control stack.

• H3: Q28 node, multi-tile superclusters (10k+ qubits), photonic I/O for low-loss inter-module entanglement.

Metrics That Matter

• Coherence per mm² (aggregate useful T₁ × count / area)

• Two-Qubit Gate Error at temperature and in-package

• Coherence Yield @ Spec (median and P95)

• Module Availability (hours to target error rates post-cooldown)

• Throughput (qualified wafers/week; packaged modules/month)

• On-Time Delivery & copy-exact transfer time

Risk & Mitigation

• Materials Variability → tighter ALD/oxidation windows, inline RA metrology, junction-level binning.

• Package-Induced Loss → phonon traps, substrate engineering, early EM co-design in PDK.

• Cryo Supply Chain → multi-vendor dilution fridges, standardized racks, modular cryo-I/O harnesses.

• Talent Bottlenecks → apprenticeship pipelines; publish to recruit (information, not advertising).

Financial Discipline: Zero Marketing, All to Tech

Every marginal dollar goes to lithography, junction lines, cryo-test capacity, packaging automation, and defect analytics. Publications, open Q-PDKs, reproducible roadmaps, and delivery performance are the signal. Lead on coherence, yield, and reliability—demand follows.

Laniakea QPU = Process first, packaging second, everything else follows—executed under a DSI-driven, telemetry-rich foundry model.