Abstract

Symbolic substitution was first proposed by Huang¹ as a means of utilizing the parallelism of optics to perform digital computing. In this method, specific logic patterns are substituted into new logic patterns in parallel according to a given transformation rule. Symbolic substitution is essentially a combination of recognition and substitution phase. Therefore, a method of optical associative memories² may be alternatively applied to implement a symbolic substitution logic system. In the method of optical associative memories, logical 1 and logical 0 are encoded in certain spatial patterns. This has the advantage of distinguishing logical 0 and a void space having no information. Preliminary experimental results are presented.

© 1987 Optical Society of America