(CAM, or "associative memory") A kind of storage device which
includes comparison logic with each bit of storage. A data
value is broadcast to all words of storage and compared with
the values there. Words which match are flagged in some way.
Subsequent operations can then work on flagged words, e.g. read
them out one at a time or write to certain bit positions in
all of them. A CAM can thus operate as a data parallel
(SIMD) processor.
CAMs are often used in caches and memory management units.
(1995-02-16)
Nearby terms:
Consul « consultant « container class « content addressable memory » content-based information retrieval » Content Data Model » content-free
