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:
Dec. 17, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 06, 2001
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
The present invention relates to content addressable memory (CAM), particularly, to a CAM having its memory array, which contains a plurality of memory locations, being divided into at least a first and a second memory block ( ), whereby the first and second memory block ( ) are formed by a first and second portion of each of said memory locations, respectively. The CAM further comprises a first set of compare lines ( ) and a first set-of match lines ( ) associated to said first memory block ( ), and a second set of compare lines ( ) and a second set of match lines ( ) associated to said second memory block ( ), and pre-charge units ( ) for charging said match lines before a comparison operation. The present invention provides an improved CAM which allows flagging of memory locations of which the content only partially matches a given comparison value. This is achieved by a CAM according to the above features using the pre-charge state of the match lines ( ) as a logically valid state.