What’s New

Qblox Instruments: 0.11.0 (03-08-2023)

Firmware Update

Python Driver

0.11.0 (PyPI link)

Breaking Changes

  • Channel map settings: The architecture to map the sequencer output paths to module output channels have undergone major refactoring. The users are now able to map any sequencer path to any output/input channel. As a result, the public interface commands to setting channel map have changed.

    #QCM Baseband
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out{0..3}('I') # E.g : qcm.sequencer0.connect_out0("I")
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out{0..3}('Q') # E.g : qcm.sequencer1.connect_out0("Q")

# QRM baseband
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out{0,1}('I')
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out{0,1}('Q')

instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_acq_I('in0')
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_acq_Q('in1')

# QCM_RF
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out{0,1}('IQ')

# QRM_RF
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_out0('IQ')
instrument.sequencer{0..5}.connect_acq('in0')

    See also

    There are convenience functions in place to connect sequencers to multiple output/input channels at once. Please have a look at Multiplexing for more info on how this can be done.

New Features

  • Settable ADC Offset : The ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) of the readout modules have an inherent DC offset that depends on temperature. This release allows the user to manually compensate for this by setting an offset via a QCoDeS command. Please have a look at the API reference (in0_offset()) for details.

  • Active Low Marker Channels: The markers can now be set at an active-low state. When enabled, the markers will stay at a 3.3 V unless it is set using ``set_mrk`t` Q1ASM command or marker_ovr_value() QCoDeS command in which case the corresponding marker will output 0V. E.g: marker0_inv_en().

Bugfixes:

  • Fixed set/get values for certain QCoDeS parameters for a dummy cluster. Please have a look at this gitlab issue for the list of all affected parameters.

Qblox Instruments: 0.10.0 (05-05-2023)

Firmware Update

Python Driver

0.10.0 (PyPI link)

Breaking Changes

None

New Features

  • 1ns timegrid : Changed resolution of the sequencer’s real-time timegrid from 4 ns to 1 ns for all real-time instructions, except for the instructions that operate on the NCOs (set_freq, reset_ph, set_ph, set_ph_delta). For now, the NCO instructions still operate on the 4 ns timegrid.

    Note

    The minimum duration for the real time instructions must still be greater than 4 ns. Scope acquisitions can be started on a 1 ns time resolution. When doing hardware averaged scope acquisitions, the acquisition duration should be a multiple of 4ns.

  • Dummy Acquisition: The data acquisition can now be mocked by the dummy driver at runtime as compared to the previous version where the dummy data was passed to the acquisition dictionary during compile time.

  • Added the option to control the brightness of the front-panel LEDs. The brightness can be set to four settings: high, medium, low, off ( See Cluster.led_brightness()).

Bugfixes:

  • ADC Calibration: Cause for sporadic failures of ADC calibration (runtime exceptions and data glitches) was found and fixed. ADC Calibration now also runs in the background calling for less user intervention to calibrate it. (See start_adc_calib()).

  • Fan speed : Fan speed getting stuck issue due to the presence of at least one baseband module in the cluster, is fixed.

  • Continuous Output mode : Introduced in the previous firmware release (Cluster fw 0.4.0 and Pulsar fw 0.9.0), the issue with no continuous signal from even outputs is fixed with this release.

Qblox Instruments: 0.9.0 (28-02-2023)

Firmware Update

Python Driver

0.9.0 (PyPI link)

Breaking Changes

  • Q1ASM instruction change : wait_trigger <wait_time_in_ns> –> wait_trigger <trigger_address>, <wait_time_in_ns>

  • QCoDeS parameter name change: discretization_threshold_acq –> thresholded_acq_threshold.

  • QCoDeS parameter name change: phase_rotation_acq –> thresholded_acq_rotation.

New Features

  • Added new feedback functionality to allow sequencer-to-sequencer, module-to-module and Cluster-to-Cluster feedback. To support this, new Q1ASM instructions are added to the instruction set. Please have a look at the Feedback section on the RTD for more info and Conditional Playback Tutorial to see it in action.

    See also

    Conditional Playback Tutorial

    Note

    The external trigger input is now also connected to the new trigger network for feedback purposes and must be mapped to this network using the associated parameters (please look at wait_trigger Q1ASM command in the Q1 Sequence Processor section for more details).

  • Reduced back-to-back acquisition latency for binned acquisitions to 300ns from 1200ns.

Bugfixes

  1. Fixed bug that prevented excluding Sequencer.sequence() when creating a snapshot through QCoDeS. As with the previous driver release, It can only be queried using Sequencer.sequence.cache().