Low Noise Factory in Gothenburg has the majority of the global cryogenic low-noise amplifier market, an essential building block of quantum computers. Now, the company is growing.
Arsalan Pourkabirian, Head of Semiconductor Devices at Low Noise Factory.
In their 1500 square meter facilities in Gothenburg, Sweden, Low Noise Factory develops, produces and sells cryogenic high-performing low-noise amplifiers for microwave frequencies from a few hundred megahertz up to 116 gigahertz.
Their traditional customer is within radio astronomy, a business area who has been pushing cryogenic low-noise amplifiers since the 50’s. But now it’s all about quantum.
– In the early 2010’s quantum computing really took off as a research area. And organizations working there quickly became our number one customers. Today it’s probably 85 percent of what we do, says Jörgen Stenarson, CTO.
Hands of industry
Moving into the current offices back in 2020, Low Noise Factory were a team of ten people. Now they are 25 and the turnover has almost doubled every two years since then.
The company, a spin-off from Chalmers, have a yearly turnover around SEK 200 million and need to hire more people.
– We are expanding thanks to the quantum computer market, which is growing fast. Especially when it got out of the universities and into the hands of industry. All of the sudden the scale of orders changed radically, says Arsalan Pourkabirian, Head of Semiconductor Devices.
Expanding market
Low Noise Factory is an example of a Swedish company already producing and delivering quantum-related devices today, this is not a vision for 20 years from now, but a present-day reality.
Their customer is anyone building or experimenting in quantum computing, using cryogenic methods. It’s both big, global companies and a lot of SME’s, institutes and universities.
– This cryogenic market is still quite a niche market. The whole market is maybe 30-40 million dollars. As a result, very big semiconductor companies were not interested in entering this area. But the market is definitely expanding, and we can be talking about completely different scales in the future, says Arsalan Pourkabirian.
Collab with Chalmers
One of the strengths of the company is still the tight collaboration with Chalmers.
– We are doing active research together with Chalmers developing semiconductors. For us it’s important to have the full chain, basically from the material all the way to the final product. In that way we can stay competitive. And not dependent on anyone else for the core technology, says Jörgen Stenarson.
What’s the vision for the company?
– Continuing to deliver this state of the art cryogenic amplifiers for existing and new customers that will need it in the future. To deliver the best technology possible, says Jörgen Stenarson.
Text and photo: Jonas Löfvendahl
• Facts Low Noise Factory
Established 2005 as a spin-off from Chalmers University of Technology, by founder and CEO Niklas Wadefalk. Designs and produces low-noise microwave amplifiers for quantum computers and other applications. Read more here!
(i) Jörgen Stenarson, CTO at Low Noise Factory. (ii) Arsalan Pourkabirian in the production facilities in Gothenburg. (iii) Jörgen Stenarson with Jon Wingborg and Camilla Johansson from QSIP.