Superconductor Electronics and the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems

The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) recently succeeded the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). The roadmap driver changed from scaling physical dimensions to application requirements and now includes a broader range of non-semiconductor technologies, such as superconductor electronics (SCE). We review current applications for SCE, ranging from development activities to small- scale commercial products. Computational accelerators within data centers and other future applications will require significant improvements in circuit density, complexity, functional capability, memory capacity, and data rates in and out of the cryogenic environment. As a first step, we propose to develop an application-driven roadmap for superconducting digital computing that will include key decisions to be made by the superconductor electronics community.