Abstract

A variety of calculating machines including Turing machines (TMs) and cellular array processors (CAPs) appear to need optical content addressable memories (CAMs) for high speed and/or high flexibility. In all cases auxiliary memories (the tape for TMs and the array for CAPs) are needed as well. Because the requirements on them are not severe, these auxiliary memories need not be optical. This use of optical CAMs permits extremely long and complex operations to be carried out quite rapidly. In the simplest scheme binary input maps are converted into new binary input maps through CAMs. The particular program is fixed. Data input is by pulsed light addressing of acoustooptic cells with a data flow pattern chosen to minimize temporal complexity. In future systems, flexible, more complex or even adaptive CAMs will prove useful.

© 1985 Optical Society of America