| US 7,403,143 B2 | ||
| Optical quantizing unit and optical A/D converter | ||
| Masatoshi Hirono, Yokohama (Japan); Takahiro Suzuki, Tokyo (Japan); Hideki Ito, Kawasaki (Japan); and Takeshi Morino, Tokyo (Japan) | ||
| Assigned to Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Tokyo (Japan) | ||
| Filed on Nov. 30, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/987,489. | ||
| Application 11/987489 is a continuation of application No. 11/525842, filed on Sep. 25, 2006. | ||
| Claims priority of application No. 2006-004214 (JP), filed on Jan. 11, 2006. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2008/0094263 A1, Apr. 24, 2008 | ||
| Int. Cl. H03M 1/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 341—137 [341/13; 341/155] | 6 Claims |
| 1. An optical quantizing unit having quantizing levels and comprising:
an optical divider dividing first optical pulses to be quantized and sending each of the divided first optical pulses to each
of a plurality of paths, the optical divider dividing the first optical pulses in accordance with the number of guantizing
levels;
a plurality of delay lines which delay the divided first optical pulses by different delay times, each of the delay lines
receiving each of the divided first optical pulses through each of the paths;
a plurality of optical filters passing with different transmittances the divided first optical pulses which have sent from
the delay lines, respectively;
an optical synthesizer synthesizing the respective first optical pulses which have passed through the respective optical filters;
and
an optical threshold filter sequentially receiving the synthesized first optical pulses from the optical synthesizer, and
sending second optical pulses when light intensities of the first optical pulses are above a preset threshold value.
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