Abstract: A system of finite state machines built with asynchronous or synchronous logic for controlling the flow of data through computational logic circuits programmed to accomplish a task specified by a user, having one finite state machine associated with each computational logic circuit, having each finite state machine accept data from either one or more predecessor finite state machines or from one or more sources outside the system and furnish data to one or more successor finite state machines or a recipient outside the system, excluding from consideration in determining a clock period for the system logic paths performing the task specified by the user, and providing a means for ensuring that each finite state machine allows sufficient time to elapse for the computational logic circuit associated with that finite state to perform its task.

Abstract: A method for compressing data employing vector quantization is achieved by calculating the norm of an input vector and identifying a reference codebook vector which has a norm which is closest to the norm of the input vector. The distance between the input vector and the reference codebook vector selected is computed and employed to identify a vector space about the reference vector containing a subset of codebook vectors one or more of which may be closer to the input vector than the initially selected reference vector. The closest codebook vector is selected iteratively without the necessity of searching every vector in the codebook.