The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 02, 1978
Filed:
Feb. 25, 1976
Arnold Weinberger, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Disclosed is a decoder which receives a number of coded binary-weighted input signals and which provides, on a plurality of output signal lines, a threshold related to the coded value of the input signals. The threshold is defined at the output as a consecutive sequence of output signal lines having a binary 0 value on one side of the threshold, and a consecutive sequence of output signals on the other side of the threshold having a binary value of 1. In one embodiment, a single level of binary logic receives n input signals and produces a threshold on m = 2.sup.n -1 output signal lines. A second embodiment receives n input signals which are divided into groups of signals, each group of which is applied to an intermediate threshold generator, the outputs of which are combined in a final level to provide m output signals. A further embodiment of the threshold decoder receives two groups of input signals which are combined in a first level of intermediate threshold generators, the outputs of which are then combined in a final stage which may produce more than one threshold on the output signal lines. Another further embodiment of the threshold decoder discloses a plurality of groups of input signal lines, combined in a plurality of intermediate threshold generators, the outputs of which are combined in a final level of logic to produce, selectively, a like plurality of thresholds on the output signal lines.