Looking for Content Adressable Memory

[Bruce Milne]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a CAM (also known as a Network Search Engine) but the
manufacturers I located a few years ago (e.g. IDT, Cypress) have recently
sold their product lines to Netlogic Microsystems.

I'm finding Netlogic a little difficult to deal with, and I was hoping
someone here could suggest other manufacturers of these parts.

Rough specs:

About 50 million 112 bit ternary matches per second. (This would seem to
rule out parts from Music Semiconductors.)
The size requirement is quite modest; 4k entries would be ok.

I guess a binary CAM would also work if it had some sort of masking
capability.

I am flexible regarding the interface.

Thanks,
Bruce

 

[Bruce Milne]

FPGA?

John

Thanks John. I hadn't considered that, but now that I do, I think it
could be practical. The FPGA would have the disadvantage of much higher
cost and power consumption, but the design might be able to bear that.

Cheers,
Bruce.

 

[krw]

Thanks John. I hadn't considered that, but now that I do, I think it
could be practical. The FPGA would have the disadvantage of much higher
cost and power consumption, but the design might be able to bear that.

I think you'll find that CAMs tend to be pretty high power devices. An
FPGA likely won't be any worse.