content addressable memory


content addressable memory

(CAM, or "associative memory") A kind of storage device whichincludes comparison logic with each bit of storage. A datavalue is broadcast to all words of storage and compared withthe values there. Words which match are flagged in some way.Subsequent operations can then work on flagged words, e.g. readthem out one at a time or write to certain bit positions inall of them. A CAM can thus operate as a data parallel(SIMD) processor.

CAMs are often used in caches and memory management units.