An associative memory integrated system for character recognition

An associative memory chip is used for fast, robust character recognition. Operating in parallel, the chip determines the closest match between an input bit pattern and multiple stored bit patterns based on the Hamming distance; ties are broken arbitrarily. The chip is programmable for bit-mapped fonts of up to 124 bits per character and can store up to 116 characters. A fully functional 6.8 mm by 6.9 mm chip has been fabricated in a standard single-poly, double-metal 2.0 /spl mu/m n-well CMOS process.<
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