Superconductive microelectronics

Major progress and breakthroughs had occurred during the last decade in the field of Superconductive Electronics. This is related both to the discover y of high temperature oxide superconductors shortly later applied to microw ave passive devices and simple SQUID magnetometers, but the biggest progres s has been made, during the same period, on the achievement of large scale integrated (LSI) circuits using conventional superconductive multilayers. C ircuits made of niobium tunnel junctions are working at 4.2 K in a liquid h elium cooling system, those made of niobium nitride (NbN) junctions, workin g at 9K, in double stage refrigerators are even more attractive. Applications of such superconductive circuits are covering various fields s uch as high speed electronics (BW similar to 50 GHz), submillimeter "SIS" h eterodyne receivers, digital devices made of RSFQ logic gates (ADC/DAC, aut ocorrelators, flash digitizers, switching circuit networks, arithmetic unit s for future Petaflops-scale computers,...), devices for Metrology and NDE, functional and topographic brain investigation using multichannel SQUIDs s ystems (MEG),... Superconductive Electronics do not require critical design rules or very na rrow linewidth in the circuit fabrication but would surely benefit in the f uture in the development of silicon microelectronics, VLSI circuits Foundry services and innovative microchip or Microsystems designs.