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OpenQASM

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OpenQASM
Stable release
3.1.0 / May 15, 2024; 7 months ago (2024-05-15)
Implementation languagePython
LicenseApache License 2.0
Filename extensions.qasm
Websiteopenqasm.com

Open Quantum Assembly Language (OpenQASM; pronounced open kazm[1]) is a programming language designed for describing quantum circuits and algorithms for execution on quantum computers. It is designed to be an intermediate representation that can be used by higher-level compilers to communicate with quantum hardware, and allows for the description of a wide range of quantum operations, as well as classical feed-forward flow control based on measurement outcomes.

The language includes a mechanism for describing explicit timing of instructions, and allows for the attachment of low-level definitions to gates for tasks such as calibration.[1] OpenQASM is not intended for general-purpose classical computation, and hardware implementations of the language may not support the full range of data manipulation described in the specification. Compilers for OpenQASM are expected to support a wide range of classical operations for compile-time constants, but the support for these operations on runtime values may vary between implementations.[2]

The language was first described in a paper published in July 2017,[1] and a reference source code implementation was released as part of IBM's Quantum Information Software Kit (Qiskit) for use with their IBM Quantum Experience cloud quantum computing platform.[3] The language has similar qualities to traditional hardware description languages such as Verilog.

OpenQASM defines its version at the head of a source file as a number, as in the declaration:

OPENQASM 3;

The level of OpenQASM's original published implementations is OpenQASM 2.0. Version 3.0 of the specification is the current one and can be viewed at the OpenQASM repository on GitHub.

Examples

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The following is an example of OpenQASM source code from the official library. The program adds two four-bit numbers.[4]

/*
 * quantum ripple-carry adder
 * Cuccaro et al, quant-ph/0410184
 */
OPENQASM 3;
include "stdgates.inc";

gate majority a, b, c {
    cx c, b;
    cx c, a;
    ccx a, b, c;
}

gate unmaj a, b, c {
    ccx a, b, c;
    cx c, a;
    cx a, b;
}

qubit[1] cin;
qubit[4] a;
qubit[4] b;
qubit[1] cout;
bit[5] ans;
uint[4] a_in = 1;  // a = 0001
uint[4] b_in = 15; // b = 1111
// initialize qubits
reset cin;
reset a;
reset b;
reset cout;

// set input states
for i in [0: 3] {
  if(bool(a_in[i])) x a[i];
  if(bool(b_in[i])) x b[i];
}
// add a to b, storing result in b
majority cin[0], b[0], a[0];
for i in [0: 2] { majority a[i], b[i + 1], a[i + 1]; }
cx a[3], cout[0];
for i in [2: -1: 0] { unmaj a[i],b[i+1],a[i+1]; }
unmaj cin[0], b[0], a[0];
measure b[0:3] -> ans[0:3];
measure cout[0] -> ans[4];

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Cross, Andrew W.; Bishop, Lev S.; Smolin, John A.; Gambetta, Jay M. (2017). "Open Quantum Assembly Language". arXiv:1707.03429 [quant-ph].
  2. ^ "OpenQASM Live Specification". Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  3. ^ qiskit-openqasm: OpenQASM specification, International Business Machines, 4 July 2017, retrieved 6 July 2017
  4. ^ "openqasm/adder.qasm at master · openqasm/openqasm · GitHub". GitHub. 29 January 2022.
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