Abstract

The optical adder using MSD combines the flexibility and accuracy of digital systems with the parallel information processing capability of optics. Hence the addition of two MSD numbers can be performed in three steps regardless of the number of digits in the MSD numbers. The MSD representation is a subset of the signed-digit representation where radix r equals two. Requirements of fully parallel addition and subtraction and of a unique representation for the zero value are fulfilled by signed-digit representations. A MSD number is represented by three digits ${\text{x}}_i(i=\overline{1},0,1)$. For a precision of b bits, a given decimal number can be represented in MSD number system as follows¹,².

© 1987 Optical Society of America