Match Line Sense Amplifiers with Positive Feedback for Low-Power Content Addressable Memories

Match line sense amplifiers (MLSAs) consume a significant portion of the total power in ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs). In this paper, we present two MLSAs that employ positive feedback techniques to reduce the power consumption. Energy measurement results of the two MLSAs, fabricated with a 144times144 TCAM array in 0.18mum CMOS technology, show a reduction of 56% and 48% respectively over the conventional current-race MLSA