Modeling and testing comparison faults of memristive ternary content addressable memories

Abstract

Ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) is widely used for the network applications. However, TCAM is a power- and area-consuming component. Memristor-based TCAM is considered as a good alternative for reducing the required power and area. In this paper, we define comparison faults of 5T2R memristor-based TCAMs. Electrical defects such as transistor stuck-open/stuck-on, resistive open, short, and bridge are comprehensively injected and simulated by Hspice. We also propose a March-like test March-MCAM to fully cover the defined comparison faults. March-MCAM requires 6N Write operations and (14N + 2B) Compare operations for an N × B-bit mrTCAM.