A memristor-based TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) cell

Abstract

This paper presents a Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) cell that employs memristors as storage element. The TCAM cell requires two memristors in series to perform the traditional memory operations (read and write) as well as the search and matching operations for TCAM; this memory cell is analyzed with respect to different features (such as memristance range and voltage threshold) of the memristors to process fast and efficiently the ternary data. A comprehensive simulation based assessment of this cell is pursued by HSPICE. Comparison with other memristor-based CAMs as well as CMOS-based TCAMs shows that the proposed cell offers significant advantages in terms of power dissipation, reduced transistor count and search/match operation performance.