Searching words of different sizes

摘要

A CAM memory for searching Words of variable size, that may be divided into Comparison Units of different sizes, each containing a string of Subwords. The positions of the Subwords at both ends of a Comparison Unit are selected by means of Command Signals. Consequently, words of the data to be searched of any size may be stored contiguously in the Words of the Memory such that all of the Memory may be used for storage and searching. The number of Searching cycles and the time required for finding the position of a word of data is significantly reduced. The Match Signal from a Subword is put out as a Word Match only where the whole string of preceding Subwords of the same Comparison Unit have set Match Signals and the subsequent Command Signal has been set.