Classified one-step high-radix signed-digit arithmetic units

High-radix number systems enable higher information storage density, less complexity, fewer system components, and fewer cascaded gates and operations. A simple one-step fully parallel high-radix signed-digit arithmetic is proposed for parallel optical computing based on new joint spatial encodings. This reduces hardware requirements and improves throughput by reducing the space-bandwidth product needed. The high-radix signed-digit arithmetic operations are based on classifying the neighboring input digit pairs into various groups to reduce the computation rules. A new joint spatial encoding technique is developed to present both the operands and the computation rules. This technique increases the spatial bandwidth product (SBWP) of the spatial light modulators (SLMs) of the system. An optical implementation of the proposed high-radix signed-digit arithmetic operations is also presented. It is shown that our one-step trinary signed-digit (TSD) and quarternary signed-digit (QSD) arithmetic units are much simpler and better than all previously reported high-radix signed-digit techniques.