VERIFICATION OF 64 KB

CONTENT ADDRESSABLE
MEMORIES (CAM) USING
CONSTRAINED RANDOMIZED
LAYERED TEST BENCH
CONTENTS:
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
DEFINITION
TYPES
BLOCK DIAGRAM
ADVANTAGES
APPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION
ABSTRACT
Content-addressable memory (CAM) is a special
type of computer memory used in certain very-
high-speed searching applications. It is also
known as associative memory, associative
storage, or associative array, although the last
term is more often used for a programming data
structure. It compares input search data (tag)
against a table of stored data, and returns the
address of matching data (or in the case of
associative memory, the matching data).Several
custom computers, like the Goodyear STARAN,
were built to implement CAM, and were
designated associative computers.
 INTRODUCTION

ACONTENT-ADDRESSABLE memory (CAM) compares input search data against a

table of stored data, and returns the address of the matching data.
 CAMs have a single clock cycle throughput making them faster than other
hardware- and software-based search systems.
CAMs can be used in a wide variety of applications requiring high search speeds.
The primary commercial application of CAMs today is to classify and forward
Internet protocol (IP) packets in network routers .
 In networks like the Internet, a message such an as e-mail or a Web page is
transferred by first breaking up the message into small data packets of a few
hundred bytes, and, then, sending each data packet individually through the
network.
 These packets are routed from the source, through the intermediate nodes of the
network (called routers), and reassembled at the destination to reproduce the
original message.
 WHAT IS CAM?
 Content Addressable Memory is a special kind
of memory!
 Read operation in traditional
memory:
Input is address location of the content that we
are interested in it.
Output is the content of that address.
 In CAM it is the reverse:
Input is associated with something stored in the
memory.
Output is location where the associated content is
stored.
 TYPES OF CAMS:

 Binary CAM (BCAM)

 only stores 0s and 1s.

 Ternary CAM (TCAM)

 stores 0s, 1s and don’t cares.
BLOCK
DIAGRAM
 CAM ADVANTAGES:

• They associate the input (comparand) with their memory contents in one clock
cycle.

• They are configurable in multiple formats of width and depth of search data that
allows searches to be conducted in parallel.

• CAM can be cascaded to increase the size of lookup tables that they can store.

• We can add new entries into their table to learn what they don’t know before.

• They are one of the appropriate solutions for higher speeds.

APPLICATIONS OF CAM:
•CPU fully associative cache controllers and translations lookaside
• buffers
•Database engines
•Data compression hardware
•Artificial neural network
•Intrusion Prevention System
•Computer networking devices
C0NCLUSION:

WE HAVE SURVEYED CAM CIRCUITS AND ARCHITECTURES, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON HIGH-CAPACITY CAM.
FIRST, WE MOTIVATED OUR DISCUSSION BY SHOWING HOW CAMS CAN BE APPLIED TO PACKET
FORWARDING IN NETWORK ROUTERS. AT THE CIRCUIT LEVEL, WE HAVE REVIEWED THE TWO BASIC CMOS
CELLS, NAMELY THE NOR CELL AND THE NAND CELL. WE HAVE ALSO SHOWN HOW THE CELLS ARE
COMBINED IN A MATCHLINE STRUCTURE TO FORM A CAM WORD. WE HAVE EXPLORED THE
CONVENTIONAL PRECHARGE-HIGH SCHEME FOR SENSING THE MATCHLINE, AS WELL AS SEVERAL
VARIATIONS THAT SAVE MATCHLINE POWER INCLUDING LOW-SWING SENSING, THE CURRENT-RACE
SCHEME, SELECTIVE PRECHARGE, PIPELINING, AND CURRENT SAVING SCHEME. WE HAVE ALSO REVIEWED
THE CONVENTIONAL APPROACH FOR DRIVING SEARCHLINES, AND THE POWER-SAVING APPROACHES
WHICH ELIMINATE THE SEARCHLINE PRECHARGE OR EMPLOY HIERARCHICAL SEARCHLINES. AT THE
ARCHITECTURAL LEVEL, WE HAVE REVIEWED THREE ARCHITECTURES FOR REDUCING CAM POWER, NAMELY
BANK-SELECTION, PRE-COMPUTATION, AND DENSE ENCODING. FINALLY, WE HAVE PRESENTED OUR VIEWS
OF FUTURE DEVELOPMENT IN THE CAM FIELD.
LITERATURE SURVEY