Design trend of energy-efficient CAMs

Several state-of-the-art CAM designs are reviewed and studied in this work. Reviews are given in three aspects, including the match-line design, the search-line design, and application-specific designs. Parts of these CAMs are redesigned based on a 90 nm CMOS technology, and evaluation results when they are operated from a subthreshold VDD to a normal high VDD are reported. These results indicate that a new sub-threshold CAM design is needed in the future if a more energy-efficient CAM is pursued.