Design of asymmetric TCAM (ternary content-addressable memory) cells using FinFET

An independent-gate FinFET can operate in three modes: SG (shorted-gate), IG (independent-gate), and LP (low-power) modes, and thus a FinFET-based circuit offers a rich design space to explore. In this paper, we explore the best configuration for the FinFET-based TCAM cell. Compared with the base TCAM cell, the proposed TCAM cell Config-LPSG-1 can reduce the power dissipation of the TCAM by 35%, and improve the energy-delay product by 30%.