General

In this section we explain general concepts of the Qblox instruments, like general instrument control and status.

Control

All Qblox instruments, excluding the SPI Rack, are controlled over Ethernet using a Python driver based on QCoDeS. We recommend using this driver as it provides easy and clear access to all functionality of the instrument; even if you use a different lab-framework as the overhead of QCoDeS is minimal.

Underneath the QCoDeS driver layer, the control software is built upon the SCPI standard, as also reflected by the API reference. This means that all communication with the instrument happens using the master/slave paradigm, where the host PC is the master and always responsible for initiating communication by issuing SCPI commands to the instrument. Of course, all of this is abstracted away at the driver level, so you don’t have to have in-depth knowledge of the standard. However, if you are familiar with it, you will have access to all the default SCPI functionality that you are used to, like get_idn() (*IDN?), reset() (*RST) and clear() (*CLS), albeit with a slightly more readable name.

Reset

We advise resetting the instrument before executing any experiment to get the instrument into a well-defined state, thereby improving reproducibility of the experiment. Resetting the instrument is easily achieved by calling reset(). This will reset the instrument status and configuration to the default values. It will reset all SCPI registers, including any reported error. It will also clear all stored Q1ASM programs, waveforms and acquisitions.

There are many use cases where you want to store the instrument’s settings before resetting, for instance to be able to easily reproduce an experiment. For this, we advise to use the snapshot feature of QCoDeS.

Errors

Instrument errors are reported using SCPI’s system error registers, which can be read using get_num_system_error() (SYSTem:ERRor:COUNt?) and get_system_error() (SYSTem:ERRor:NEXT?). However, like mentioned before, this is all abstracted away at the driver level. This means that the errors are automatically read and reported to you using exceptions. Any driver function can throw these exceptions and you need to make sure these are handled appropriately, for instance by using try statements.

Clocking

The instruments need a 10 MHz reference clock to operate. It is used to derive clocks for the instrument’s internal logic and data converters. Each instrument can either generate this 10 MHz reference clock internally or it can be generated externally and provided through the REFⁱⁿ SMA connector (10 MHz, 1 Vpp nominal signal) [see section Overview]. Using the external reference source can be useful for synchronizing the instrument with other instruments in you setup, Qblox’s or others. The reference_source() parameter can be used to select which reference clock is used to clock the instrument. We recommend to set the reference right after resetting the instrument with reset(). Whichever reference clock is selected, the reference clock is also output using the REF^out SMA connector (10 MHz, 0-3.3 V signal). This output can be used as reference clock for other instruments. Be aware that the input and output reference clocks are purposely not phase aligned to aid synchronization of Qblox instruments (see section Synchronization).

Status

The status of the instrument conveys the general operational condition of the instrument. This is derived from multiple internal components, like PLLs and temperature sensors. The instrument’s status is updated every millisecond and stored in the standard SCPI registers. It can be queried through these registers [e.g. through get_status_byte() (*STB?)], but a more convenient way of reading out the general instrument status is calling get_system_status(). This returns the following status and accompanying flags that elaborate on the status:

• Status:

  • Okay: Instrument is operational.

  • Critical: Instrument has encountered an error (see flags below), but it has been corrected.

  • Error: Instrument has encountered an error (see flags below), which needs to be fixed urgently.

• Flags:

  • Carrier board PLL unlocked: No reference clock found.

  • FPGA PLL unlocked: No reference clock found.

  • FPGA temperature out-of-range: FPGA temperature has surpassed 80°C.

  • Carrier board temperature out-of-range: Carrier board temperature has surpassed 100°C.

  • Analog frontend temperature out-of-range: Analog frontend board temperature has surpassed 100°C.

The instrument status is persistent through the state critical, so a way to reset it is required. This can be simply done by calling the clear() to clear the state or by completely resetting the instrument by calling reset().

Frontpanel LEDs

The LEDs on the frontpanel of the Qblox instruments are used as a visual indication of the status of the instrument. The LED colors indicate the following status:

S	Green	Okay.
	Orange	Critical.
	Red	Error.
R	Green	External reference clock selected.
	Blue	Internal reference clock selected
	Red	No reference clock found.
I/O	Green	Channel idle.
	Purple	Sequencer connected to channel is armed.
	Blue	Sequencer connected to channel is running.
	Red	Sequencer connected to channel failed.