Patent US 7,064,971

Using 6 transistor memory cell to replace prior art 10 transistor binary content addressable memory (CAM) cells, and using 10 transistor ternary CAM (TCAM) cell to replace prior art 16 transistor TCAM cells, the present invention provided significant cost saving for high density CAM products. The power consumption problems of prior art high density CAM devices are solved by novel zoned lookup mechanism. For a high density CAM storing sorted data, lookup mechanisms of the present invention can reduce power consumption by two orders of magnitudes.