Q9Digital Electronics
Question
2 marks
Describe CAM.
Answer
CAM (Content Addressable Memory) is a special memory that is searched by content (data value) rather than by address, returning the address(es) where that content is stored.
- Also called associative memory
- Each bit of each word has comparison circuitry
- Parallel search across all entries simultaneously - very fast lookup
- Ternary CAM (TCAM) has a third state 'don't care' (X) for masked comparisons
- Applications: CPU cache tag lookup, TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer), network routers (IP address lookup), database acceleration