Superconductivity binary odometer
OwnerGregory S. Leeinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A superconducting bidirectional counter. The device finds application in very fast and very high precision analog-to-digital (A/D) converters. The counter does not need to consume any bias power.
Claims20
A superconducting apparatus responsive to an input analog signal, comprising:
- a superconducting quantum interference compound flip-flop, said compound flip-flop having at least a first and a second internal flip-flops;
- and
- a biasing device coupled to said compound flip-flop applying a biasing flux for biasing said two internal flip-flops so that they have different phases;
- and wherein said internal flip-flops having different phases are connected to form a superconductive outer quantum interference loop;
- and wherein said internal flip-flops having different phases act to counterbalance each other to reduce any biasing power consumed and to render said compound flip-flop bidirectional.
A superconducting circuit for bidirectional counting or for the analog-to-digital conversion of an input analog signal to a digital signal, said circuit having a plurality of bidirectional compound flip-flops (12(1)), (12(2)), . . . (12(n)) connected to each other in a sequence;
- and wherein each of said compound flip-flops includes at least a first and a second internal flip-flop;
- and wherein said two internal flip-flops are connected to form a superconductive outer quantum interference loop such that when the internal flip-flops of each compound flip-flop are biased to different phases, such flip-flops will act to counterbalance each other to reduce any biasing power consumed and to render said compound flip-flop bidirectional.
A high resolution N-bit A/D converter, N being a positive integer, comprising a combination of a (p+1) least significant bits phase wheel or phase tree interpolator, p being a positive integer, and
- a superconducting bidirectional flux quantum circuit connected in parallel with said phase wheel or phase tree interpolator for providing the (N-p-1) most significant bits for the analog-to-digital conversion of an input analog signal to a digital signal;
- wherein said superconducting circuit includes a plurality of bidirectional compound flip-flops connected to each other in a sequence, said input analog signal being applied to the first of said compound flip-flops in the sequence;
- wherein said bidirectional counter counts the analog signal to the nearest flux quantum;
- and
- wherein said phase wheel or phase tree interpolates the analog signal to 1/2.sup.p+1 of a flux quantum modulo the flux quantum.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.