General purpose optical computer
US5267183A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Apr 22, 1992 |
| Grant date | Nov 30, 1993 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 22, 2012 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06E1/02
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A general purpose optical computer in which bits of a control vectors are optically ANDed with bits of a data vector in a vector-vector operation, and in which the results of the optical AND operations are ORed by way of threshold detectors to form combinatorial functionals and combinatorial summations, where the combinatorial functionals and combinatorial summations generated implement a user designated instruction. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a plurality of detectors are provided, and a plurality of control words are input to the control operator means to form a control mask which operates upon the input bits provided to the light source means. Each control word interacts with the input bits and the result of such interaction is focused on a different detector. In this manner a substantial number of functionals and/or summations can be formed in parallel and operating upon very wide input words.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.