  We present the design and vacuum performance of a compact room-temperature
trapped ion system for quantum computing, consisting of a ultra-high vacuum
(UHV) package, a micro-fabricated surface trap and a small form-factor ion
pump. The system is designed to maximize mechanical stability and robustness by
minimizing the system size and weight. The internal volume of the UHV package
is only 2 cm$^3$, a significant reduction in comparison with conventional
vacuum chambers used in trapped ion experiments. We demonstrate trapping of
$^{174}$Yb$^+$ ions in this system and characterize the vacuum level in the UHV
package by monitoring both the rates of ion hopping in a double-well potential
and ion chain reordering events. The calculated pressure in this vacuum package
is about 1.5e-11 Torr, which is sufficient for the majority of current trapped
ion experiments.
