OPTICAL ANALOGUE-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER Russian patent published in 2019 - IPC G02F7/00 

FIELD: computer equipment.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to specialized computer engineering and can be used in designing high-speed information processing devices and computer equipment. Disclosed optical analogue-to-digital converter includes a coherent radiation source, (K=M+1)-output optical splitter, M optical transparencies (M=2N-1, N – digit capacity of converter), M optical Y-couplers, M optical bistable elements (OBE) of the first group, M OBE of the second group, electrooptical amplitude modulator, optical phase modulator, M-output optical splitter, M N-output optical splitters, N M-input optical couplers, N photodetectors. Output of the coherent radiation source is connected to the input of the K-output optical splitter, the outputs of which from the first to the M-th are connected to the inputs of like reflections whose outputs are connected to the first inputs of the same M optical Y-couplers, and (M+1)-th output of K-output optical splitter is connected to information input of electrooptic amplitude modulator, control input of which is input of device, and output is connected to input of optical phase modulator, output of which is connected to input of M-output optical splitter, which outputs are connected to second inputs of like M optical Y-couplers, outputs of the latter are connected to inputs of the same OBEs of the first group, the first outputs of which are connected to the inputs of the corresponding OBE of the second group. Second outputs of OBE of the first group and first OBE outputs of the second group are absorbing, and second outputs of OBE of the second group are connected to inputs of M of corresponding N-output optical splitters, outputs of which are connected to inputs of N M-input optical couplers such that in the presence of an optical signal at the input of the i-th N-output optical splitter, all N outputs of the M-input optical couplers form a position binary code of the number "i" due to presence/absence of corresponding links between optical branching of N-output optical splitter and optical branches of M-input optical couplers (certain optical branches of N-output optical splitters are absorbing/non-existent), and outputs of N M-input optical couplers are connected to inputs of like photodetectors, outputs of which are N-bit output of device.

EFFECT: faster conversion of the electrical analogue signals into a position binary code.

1 cl, 1 dwg