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:
Oct. 20, 1987
Filed:
Jun. 24, 1985
Robert W Scarr, Stansted, GB;
Standard Telephones and Cables Public Limited Co., London, GB;
Abstract
An associative (content addressable) optical memory system is comprised by a matched optical holographic filter (10, 18, 21, L1, L2) coupled to a digital computing system (14, 15, 16) having a memory (15, 16). In order to search the computing system memory for occurrences of an item, a hologram of a binary representation of the item is formed in the Fourier transform plane (18) employing laser (11) as the light source. A page of the memory to be searched is subsequently displayed at the input plane (10), which for example is comprised by a liquid crystal over silicon display, and illuminated by the laser (11). The light is filtered at the Fourier transform plane (18). Any occurrences in the input plane display of the item result in a respective correlation spot at the output plane, which spot output is decoded and supplied to the processor (14), thus providing correlation information to the computing system as to the location in its memory of the occurrences of the item.