The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 19, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 27, 1999
Kawasaki Steel Corporation, Hyogo, JP;
Abstract
An associative memory to which an encoder is applied has a plurality of associative memory subblocks each having a plurality of memory words. A hit flag resulting from match retrieval of retrieval data and the contents of the memory word, and an empty flag indicating whether or not the contents of the memory word are valid as objects for match retrieval are output from each memory word of each associative memory subblock. The address of an invalid memory word is readily controllable since the address of the memory word corresponding to the empty flag can be output as in a case where the address of the memory word corresponding to the hit flag is output. Moreover, since the hit flag and the empty flag are allowed to share a detection line with each other for common use in this encoder, the layout area of the associative memory is reduced and it is possible to build up a high-density associative memory.