Recirculating memory with plural input-output taps

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is an object of this invention to provide a random access memory having serially coupled memory cells.
It is another object of the invention to provide a random access memory having a plurality of rings of serially coupled memory cells, each of the rings having spaced taps and associated address circuitry for selecting one of the rings and one of the taps, and for producing a strobe signal enabling the addressed bit of information to be read out from a selected tap when the addressed information appears at that tap.
Briefly described, the invention is a random access memory including a plurality of sequentially coupled storage cells for recirculating data.
The random access memory includes address circuitry for addressing any particular bit of data recirculating in the memory, and also includes circuitry for counting the number of memory cells through which the addressed bit has shifted from a reference storage cell and adding that number to a binary address corresponding to the addressed bit of data to produce an internal address corresponding to the actual physical location of the addressed bit of recirculating data.
A decoder decodes the internal address corresponding to the actual physical location of the address bit and selects the actual physical location.
In one embodiment, a plurality of rings of recirculating storage cells are provided, and decode means are provided to select one of the rings.
Spaced taps are provided on each ring and tap select circuitry is provided to select the next tap at which the addressed bit of data will appear in each of the rings.
A strobe circuit is provided to generate a read/write enable pulse to enable input/output circuitry associated with the selected tap to write data into or read data out of a selected tap at the time that the addressed bit is located at the selected tap.