A High-Density Multiple-Valued Content-Addressable Memory Based on One Transistor Cell (Special Issue on LSI Memories)

This paper presents a high-density multiple-valued content-addressable memory (MVCAM) based on a floating-gate MOS device. In the proposed CAM, a basic operation performed in each cell is a threshold function that is a kind of inverter whose threshold value is programmable. Various multiple-valued operations for data retrieval can be easily performed using threshold functions. Moreover, each cell circuit in the MVCAM can be implemented using only a single floating-gate MOS transistor. As a result, the cell area of the four-valued CAM are reduced to 37% in comparison with that of the conventional dynamic CAM cell.