A new match line sensing technique in Content Addressable Memory

The paper presents a new match line sense amplifier for Content Addressable Memory. It successfully addresses the weaknesses of contemporary designs. Extensive simulation results using a 1 V/65 nm CMOS process from STMicroelectronics have verified that the proposed sense amplifier outperforms other five contemporary designs in terms of energy consumption, area requirement and robustness. This is achieved by using a differential amplifier coupled with a pulse precharge technique. More specifically, the proposed sensing technique consumes 78% less energy than the conventional design. Additionally, it can work under a wide range of temperatures (from 0°C to 100°C) and is almost insensitive to process variations.