Nanoelectromechanical-Switch-Based Ternary Content-Addressable Memory (NEMTCAM)

A tristate-nanoelectromechanical-switch-based ternary content-addressable memory (NEMTCAM) is proposed for the first time. In the proposed unit NEMTCAM cell, a single nanoelectromechanical (NEM) memory switch replaces two static random access memory cells. Due to the monolithic 3-D (M3D) integration and nonvolatile property of NEM memory switches, the proposed NEMTCAM achieves an 86.3% smaller area, 75.0% lower dynamic power consumption, and a 76.6% higher search speed than conventional ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) in addition to a negligible static leakage current.