Patent attributes
A method includes: providing input information in an electronic format; converting the electronic input information into an optical input vector; optically transforming the optical input vector into an optical output vector based on an optical matrix multiplication; converting the optical output vector into an electronic format; and electronically applying a non-linear transformation to the electronically converted optical output vector to provide output information in an electronic format. For example, a set of input values are encoded on respective optical signals. For each of at least two subsets of optical signals, a copying module splits the subset into multiple copies of the optical signals. For each copy of a first subset of optical signals, a corresponding multiplication module multiplies the optical signals of the first subset by matrix element values using optical amplitude modulation. A summation module produces an electrical signal representing a sum of the results of the multiplication modules.
