GatE-coNtrollEd Superconducting TransIStors

The global internet traffic is expected to grow by 55% year-over-year until 2030, reaching more than 5.000 exabytes at 1Tb/s.

Current telecommunication (TLC) infrastructures are facing an impossible challenge: indeed, the limitation of current technology is basically due to the speed of current generation TLC networks, and the huge amount of data processed at network nodes.

The key features expected for the 5th and 6th generation communication networks require ultra-high throughput and ultra-low latency, assuming the capacity to deal locally and externally with Tb/s bitrate.

While the improved transmission bitrate will be granted using microwave (GHz) or teraHertz (THz) radio frequency signals, dealing with data sorting will, in turn, become harder and harder.

GENESIS aims to pave the way to solve this TCL infrastructure problem proposing a new paradigm for electronics in which the fundamental building blocks rely on gate-controlled superconducting transistors.

The foreseen superior performances for superconducting devices such as, for instance, radiation sensors and radiofrequency (RF) switches based on the application of a local electric field to superconducting weak-links will be assessed with a laboratory-scale experiment that will test the operating frequency up to 20 GHz with the pre-industrial configuration (device + pulse tube + packaging and electronics).

On the business side, the project aims to perform a stakeholder analysis to validate the system’s functionalities, and the main requirements for the integration of the technology in selected application scenarios.

Finally, with the support of an IP studio that will carry out a Freedom To Operate analysis, such action will result in a patentability study to determine the possibility to file new patent applications (one is expected to be submitted early in 2021) covering discoveries made during the FET Launchpad project.