Patent ID: 7822800

Claim:
A hardware apparatus for performing a calculation operation with at least one input signal consisting of signal sections, wherein each signal section of said input signal has a constant amplitude, said apparatus comprising: (a) a signal transformation unit for transforming said at least one input signal into a first intermediary signal having a virtual amplitude with respect to at least one carrier signal; (b) a calculation unit for performing the calculation operation on said first intermediary signal to generate a second intermediary signal; (c) a signal retransformation unit for retransforming said second intermediary signal into an output signal consisting of signal sections, wherein each signal section of said output signal has a constant amplitude, wherein the signal transformation unit comprises: (a1) a carrier signal generator for each carrier signal to generate said carrier signal; (a2) a comparator for each carrier signal generator which compares the amplitude of said input signal with the amplitude of said generated carrier signal to generate a logical output signal indicating whether the amplitude of said input signal is higher than the amplitude of said carrier signal; and (a3) a sample-and-hold circuit for each comparator which is triggered by said logical output signal of the respective comparator to store temporarily the amplitude of the respective carrier signal at an output terminal of said sample-and-hold circuit.