Design Trade-Offs for a Software Associative Memory,

摘要

The report describes an associative (content-addressable) computer memory simulation,called GIRS (Graph Information Retrieval System),designed to handle the dynamic insertion,retrieval,and deletion of arbitrary symbolic or numeric data structures. The main purpose of the study is to demonstrate fundamental trade-offs between time,space,complexity,and flexibility in the field-level operation of any associative memory simulation. Specifically,the paper concludes that: A reduction of retrieval time is possible at the cost of a complex linkage scheme and slow insertion;The design of a random node generator can be optimized to match the scrambling transformation and reduce retrieval time; A dynamic reorganization of pages and the use of inference mechanisms can reduce the number of page fetches and handle complex queries with minimal storage. (Author)