A signal transmission circuit includes a first photocoupler to which a transmission signal is input, an edge detection circuit which is disposed in a primary side of the first photocoupler, the edge detection circuit being configured to detect a rising edge and a falling edge of the transmission signal, and an edge demodulation circuit which is disposed in a secondary side of the first photocoupler, the demodulation circuit being configured to demodulate the transmission signal by using only one of the rising edge and the falling edge of an edge detection signal output from the edge detection circuit via the first photocoupler.

A light-emitting unit outputs an optical signal corresponding to an input electric signal. A light-receiving unit is electrically insulated from the light-emitting unit and outputs an electric signal according to the received optical signal as an output signal. In the light-receiving unit, a first light-receiving device outputs an optical current according to the optical signal. A second light-receiving device is provided not to receive the optical signal. A current duplication circuit duplicates a current flowing through the second light-receiving device. A current-voltage conversion circuit converts a current, which is generated by subtracting the current duplicated by the current duplication circuit from a current flowing through the first light-receiving device, into a voltage signal. A comparator output a result of a comparison between the voltage signal converted by the current-voltage conversion circuit and a threshold voltage as the output signal.

A quasi-optical coupling system launches and extracts surface wave communication transmissions from a wire. At millimeter-wave frequencies, where the wavelength is small compared to the macroscopic size of the equipment, the millimeter-wave transmissions can be transported from one place to another and diverted via lenses and reflectors, much like visible light. Transmitters and receivers can be positioned near telephone and power lines and reflectors placed on or near the cables can reflect transmissions onto or off of the cables. The lenses on the transmitters are focused, and the reflectors positioned such that the reflected transmissions are guided waves on the surface of the cables. The reflectors can be polarization sensitive, where one or more of a set of guided wave modes can be reflected off the wire based on the polarization of the guided wave modes and polarization and orientation of the reflector.

A potential-separating optical signal transmission device comprises a printed circuit board-based transmitter device with a signal input, a transmission signal conditioning circuit and an optical signal transmitter, a printed circuit board-based receiver device with an optical signal receiver, a received signal processing circuit and a signal output, an optical transmission path between the signal transmitter and the signal receiver, a shield assembly for each transmitter and receiver device, an implementation of the shield assemblies by means of metallic layers in and/or on at least one printed circuit board, and a substantially rigid, transparent transfer rod as an optical transmission path, the ends of said transfer rod being arranged within the respective shield assembly of the transmitter and receiver device in front of the signal transmitter and signal receiver, respectively, and being mechanically held by the at least one printed circuit board.

A surgical instrument includes a housing configured to removably attach to a component separate from the surgical instrument, the component comprising a carriage attached to a main frame of a manipulator arm of a surgical system and configured to slidably move along the main frame, the housing comprising a first electrical circuit, and a common-mode choke. When the housing is removably attached to the component, the common-mode choke is coupled between the first electrical circuit and an optical isolator circuit included in the component, and the optical isolator circuit is configured to optically transmit data representative of a signal between the first electrical circuit and a second electrical circuit included in the component.

An optical coupling device includes a power lead with a first portion and a power line portion. A light-emitting element is disposed on the first portion. A ground lead includes a ground line portion and a second portion with a drive circuit disposed thereon. A first input frame in the device includes a first input terminal portion and a first input signal line portion. A second input frame in the device includes a second input terminal portion and a second input signal line portion. The first and second input frames are adjacent to each other and a minimum distance from the first input signal line portion to the first installation portion is greater than a minimum distance from the first input signal line portion to the power line portion.

The present invention provides a package framework for a photoelectric conversion module, in which a photoelectric device is mounted on a printed circuit board such as a rigid-flex PCB and a HDI (High Density Interconnect) PCB, and then is connected, via a flexible printed circuit board, to a traditional printed circuit board having a driver chip or a digital signal processing integrated circuit disposed thereon. The present invention can prevent signal transmission interference caused by using bond wire, and can also maintain the stability of mechanical structure.

An opto-isolator is provided that is designed for optically interconnecting devices that are mounted on multiple PCBs. The opto-isolator is particularly well suited for arrangements where the PCB-to-PCB distance is very small. In such cases, using an optical fiber as the optical waveguide can result in the optical fiber being bent beyond its minimum bend radius, resulting in damage to the optical fiber and/or performance problems due to attenuation of the optical signal. The opto-isolator includes first and second generally rigid structures that engage one another with an alignment tolerance that ensures proper board-to-board alignment while also facilitating the ease with which the alignment process can be performed. Once the first and second generally rigid structures are in engagement with one another, they form a generally rigid optical waveguide structure for coupling light from an optical transmitter of one of the PCBs onto an optical receiver of the other PCB.

A optical link for achieving electrical isolation between a controller and a memory device is disclosed. The optical link increases the noise immunity of electrical interconnections, and allows the memory device to be placed a greater distance from the processor than is conventional without power-consuming I/O buffers.

An apparatus includes a polarization beam splitter (PBS) and an optical detector. The PBS is configured to receive a polarized optical signal transported via an optical communication path of an optical network. The detector is configured to receive from the PBS a first polarization component of the optical signal, and to produce a first electrical measure of the first polarization component. A processor is configured to determine a dynamic metric of the optical communication path based at least on the first electrical measure. Some embodiments also include a second detector configured to receive from the PBS a second polarization component of the optical signal. The second detector produces a second electrical measure of the second polarization component, and the processor is configured to determine the dynamic metric based on both the first and second electrical measures.