MACHAM: a best match content addressable memory

Abstract

MACHAM is an acronym for memory addressable by content using Hamming distance. MACHAM is a VLSI chip capable of providing a list of matches sorted by the Hamming distance between the test pattern and stored patterns. This type of content addressable memory is expected to be useful for pattern recognition problems solvable with template matching. The usefulness of the MACHAM chip in a bit-coded character recognizer is discussed. A prototype capable of holding 16 templates of 16 bit has been implemented.<>