A Novel Realization and Synthesis of Ternary Content-Addressable Memory (TCAM) Design Using Reversible Circuits

Reversible computing is a model of computing where the computational process to some extent is reversible. A necessary condition for reversibility of a computational model is that the relation of the mapping states of transition functions to their successors should at all times be one-to-one. Content addressable memory is a special type of memory which can do search operation in a single clock cycle. CAM has disadvantages of high power dissipation during the matching operation. Ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) is a special type of memory which is used to search for logic 0, logic 1, logic ’x’. These types of memory are used in routers in order to perform the lookup table function in a single clock cycle. As the use of networks, typified by the Internet, has spread widely in recent years, attention has been focused on TCAMs as a key device for increasing the speed of packet forwarding (packet data transfers) by networking equipment by enabling highspeed lookup of destinations, etc., for large volumes of information during packet data transfers. Reversible logic has gained its interest in recent years due to its ultra low power characteristics. Many works have been done to reduce the power consumption in TCAM. This paper deals with a novel design of TCAM cells using reversible logic. The proposed design is optimized in terms of number of garbage outputs and quantum cost. The proposed TCAM cell does the function of the conventional TCAM cell.