Structure and method of an encoded ternary content addressable memory (CAM) cell for low-power compare operation

摘要

The invention discloses a low-power ternary CAM by utilizing four encoded comparand datalines, C0, C1, C2, and C3 in a twin ternary cell. The twin ternary cell is a composite of two ternary CAM bits. The two binary CAM bits are coded so that only one of four comparand datalines is toggled during a compare operation. The encoded data is stored and used for comparison. In one embodiment, the four possible states for the 2 bit comparands are coded as 0001, 0010, 0100, and 1000.