US Patent 7643353 Content addressable memory having programmable interconnect structure

A content addressable memory (CAM) device includes a CAM array, a programmable interconnect structure, and a priority encoder. The CAM array includes a plurality of CAM rows, each row including a number of CAM cells for storing a data word and coupled to a match line that indicates a match result for the CAM row. The programmable interconnect structure is coupled to each CAM row and is configured to selectively route the match results from a first CAM row as an input match signal to any number of arbitrarily selected CAM rows at the same time.