N-valued optical logic architecture and method
AssigneeShaowen Song
InventorShaowen Song
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Abstract
An architecture for optical logic gates is presented in which N predetermined wavelengths of light are used to define data. This data is manipulated by N-valued optical logic gates based on a set of rules referred to as Song's switching algebra. The gates when connected end to end to produce optical circuits such as optical random access memory or an optical arithmetic logic unit.
Claims14
An architecture supporting N wavelengths of light representing digital data in an N-valued logic system comprising:
- a plurality of optical components, each component having an input port and an output port and for operating on a light signal received at the input port in accordance with a transfer function from a plurality of predetermined transfer functions;
- wherein light within the signal at a predetermined wavelength of the N wavelengths corresponds to a predetermined value among the N values and wherein N is at least 2.
An optical logic system having N symbols wherein each symbol is represented by a wavelength of light comprising:
- an optical component including:
- a first port for receiving a first optical signal at any of the N wavelengths representative of the N symbols;
- an output port;
- and
- an optical circuit for receiving the first optical signal at any of the N wavelengths, for varying the first optical signal in accordance with a predetermined transfer function and for providing the second optical signal representative of one of the N symbols to the output port, the predetermined transfer function a same function for each of the N wavelengths.
An optical computing device comprising:
- an optical input port;
- and
- a plurality of O-NOR, O-AND, O-NOT, O-NAND and O-OR logic gates combined such that the device's transfer function is configurable from the optical input port.
An optical computing device (OCD) according to claim 14 with an output port where the output port is coupled to the optical input port of another OCD.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.