KLiNQ: Knowledge Distillation-Assisted Lightweight Neural Network for Qubit Readout on FPGA

Abstract

Superconducting qubits are among the most promising candidates for building quantum information processors. Yet, they are often limited by slow and error-prone qubit readout -- a critical factor in achieving high-fidelity operations. While current methods, including deep neural networks, enhance readout accuracy, they typically lack support for mid-circuit measurements essential for quantum error correction, and they usually rely on large, resource-intensive network models. This paper presents KLiNQ, a novel qubit readout architecture leveraging lightweight neural networks optimized via knowledge distillation. Our approach achieves around a 99% reduction in model size compared to the baseline while maintaining a qubit-state discrimination accuracy of 91%. KLiNQ facilitates rapid, independent qubit-state readouts that enable mid-circuit measurements by assigning a dedicated, compact neural network for each qubit. Implemented on the Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA, our design can perform the discrimination within 32ns. The results demonstrate that compressed neural networks can maintain high-fidelity independent readout while enabling efficient hardware implementation, advancing practical quantum computing.

Accepted by the 62nd Design Automation Conference (DAC 2025)

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