Mosaid CAMs hit 18 Mbits, add look-aside interface

San Jose, Ca. -- Mosaid Technologies Inc. is releasing an 18-Mbit content-addressable memory (CAM) and is simultaneously launching a revision of its 9-Mbit CAM featuring the Look-Aside interface (LA-1) that was recently endorsed by the Network Processing Forum.

The development reflects a further "netcentrification" of basic computing building blocks as the new mainstream of computing --ubiquitous network connectivity --- shifts the industry attention away from traditonal building blocks based on personal computers.

While other memory developers have implemented their CAMs with logic processes, Mosaid has continued to utilize its embedded DRAM (eDRAM) process, which uses six transistors for a CAM cell as opposed to the 16 transistors required by other manufacturers, leading to a smaller-sized cell, said director of marketing Romain Saha.

Mosaid said it can achieve these size reductions with a mature 0.18-micron process, versus shifting to a more advanced 0.13-micron process to achieve similar size reductions.

Mosaid is also touting the performance capabilities of the DC18288 18-Mbit CAM. Designers can organize it in either 256-k x 72, 128-k x 144, or 64-k x 288 blocks. Across these blocks, the part can perform 100 million searches per second. this allows an entire CAM array to be searched in a single clock cycle, an important consideration if CAMs are to continue to move into applications in the network environment traditionally dominated by randomly accessible DRAMs and SRAMs.

For applications requiring deeper search requirements, designers can daisy chain multiple 18288 devices, linking a total of eight together.

The 18-Mbit CAM is equipped with three status bits. Designers can tap them to define functions that are specific to their application, such as coarse parity.

A host of advanced search features are also delivered with the 18288, including: search and output highest match; search and output all; search and delete; search status bits; and search for free address. The search and output all function can search and output multiple matches in a CAM, then deliver them in priority order. To perform this function in the past, designers needed to run a search, find the best match, delete that entry, run the search again to find the next best match, and so on.

The DC18288 employs statistical power savings techniques that can reduce power by treating the entire memory as one logical block, Saha said. Overall, the part consumes about 10 watts.

LA-1 support

Mosaid this week is also describing its DC9000, a 9-Mbit CAM that supports the Network Processing Forum's LA-1 interface. The interface can link a network processor with a co-processor or memory solution, including CAM devices.

The DC9000's LA-1 interface supports 200-MHz operation as well as 32 separate contexts per port for multithreaded environments. The memory comes equipped with a data interface that returns associated data to a network processor, optimizing the utilization of the LA-1 bus, Mosaid said.

The 18288 is available now in a 432-pin BGA that is pin-compatible with the DC9288 CAM. The DC9000 will be available in the first quarter.