FPGA Based Data Acquisition System for Cryogenic Device Verification

Abstract

In this work, a system of processors connected to an FPGA is interfaced with a custom analog frontend and used to create a verification environment for cryogenic devices. In particular, this thesis focuses on the technical structure of that system. Current validation efforts often rely on commercially available arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) and oscilloscopes, which, while highly capable, are often prohibitively expensive and poorly suited for large-scale or parallelized testing environments. As noted in industry reports, scaling such instrumentation introduces significant challenges in cost, calibration, and signal synchronization, making them inefficient for high-resolution or high-speed analyses in multi-channel systems [1]. On the other hand, an FPGA provides the necessary performance to increase parallelism without a proportional increase in cost, greatly improving testing resolution and speed. When augmented with a set of processors, we introduce a level of accessibility and automatability not currently present in commercial products. To be clear, while the board was designed with the testing of nanowires in mind (and is not capable of measuring DC voltages), it can still be combined with separate lab equipment to interact with Josephson Junction based devices. That said, the flexibility of this system allows for a generalized application to any electronic that demands a specialized testing procedure involving arbitrary signal processing and generation. The money, time, and energy that this innovation will save on cryogenic electronic validation will significantly improve our progress in developing these technologies.