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. 16, 1989
Filed:
Dec. 31, 1987
Thomas J Cloonan, Willowbrook, IL (US);
Harvard S Hinton, Naperville, IL (US);
Frederick B McCormick, Jr, Lisle, IL (US);
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
An optical switch (100) is disclosed for switching spatially-separated complementary optical signals from a row of a two-dimensional input storage array (132) to a selected row of a two-dimensional ouptut storage array (133). The switch includes an input system (101) for converting temporally-separated information represented by a serial bit stream of complementary optical signals into a spatially-separated format for storage in the input array. An output system 105 is also included for converting the switched, spatially-separated information in the output array into a temporally-separated format for serial transmission on plurality of optical output fiber pairs 160(1)-160(N). The input and output systems enable the switch to perform both time- and space-division switching with only a single stage of switching. A distributor system (103), also included in the switch, spatially distributes the optical signal pairs from a row of the input array over the entire output array for selective storage of the information represented by the signals in one or more rows of the output array.