ABSTRACT

A LOW-POWER TERNARY CONTENT ADDRESSABLE MEMORY WITH PAI-SIGMA MATCHLINES

A Pai-sigma matchline scheme is used to reduce the compare (search) power of a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). The proposed match line does not incur the issues of charge sharing and short circuit current, which typically exist in the hybrid NAND-NOR matchline. Moreover, the switching activity of the search lines of a TCAM with the proposed match lines is low. A 3264 bit TCAM with the pai-sigma match lines is implemented to demonstrate the low power feature. Results show that the compare power of the TCAM can achieve 60% energy reduction compared with the conventional NOR type TCAM. Also, the energy consumption per bit search of the TCAM is only 2.287fJ/bit/search. TCAMs are widely used in the network applications, such as flow analysis and classless inter-do-main routing. In comparison with the random access memory (RAM), however, high power dissipation is one of the major disadvantages of TCAM. Effective power reduction techniques thus are very important for designing a TCAM.

Group members: Soumya Thota(09B81A0488) M.Subhash(09B81A0493) Sumanth(09B81A0496)