Design of Content-Addressable Memory in Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Computer Engineering, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

2 Department of Computer Engineering, Urmia Branch, Islamic Azad University, Urmia, Iran

Abstract

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is one of the new technologies in the design of digital nano circuits. This technology is an appropriate alternative to today's silicon technology. The inherent features of this technology include very small dimensions, high speed and very low power consumption. Therefore, it can be used to design special memories that require high operating speed such as the content addressable memory. These types of memory are widely used in designing hardware systems, especially routers. In this type of memory, speedy operations are very necessary due to the large number of search and comparison errands. In this paper, we propose a structure for the content addressable memory in QCA that has a mask capability for comparison. The proposed structure consists of a memory cell, a comparator and a matching unit designed using Multiplexer and XNOR gate. The performance of the designed structure is studied by QCADesigner software. The result proves its effectiveness. The proposed structure has 11% improvement in cell number, 57% improvement in gate number and 5% improvement in area occupancy compared to the previous structure.
 

Keywords

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 05 October 2019
  • Revise Date: 23 December 2019
  • Accept Date: 01 February 2020
  • Publish Date: 21 December 2020

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