Ultra-Fast and High-Reliability VCMA-MTJ Based TCAM for Precision Search Operations
Kevin Vicuña, Stéphane Koffi, Laurent Raymond, Lionel Trojman · 2025
This paper presents the design and performance evaluation of a non-volatile VCMA-MTJ-based Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM), focusing on energy efficiency, search speed, and reliability. Although traditional DMTJ-based NV-TCAMs offer reliability, they often encounter data over-writing during search operations. To overcome this issue, we introduce a novel VCMA-MTJ architecture that employs voltage-controlled state transitions, effectively eliminating the risk of memory overwrite and ensuring stable and robust operation. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the proposed design achieves a Search Error Rate (SER) of 0.7% for a 144-bit word, with a read energy consumption of$49.94fJ/bitcell$and a search time of$0.777ns$. These results highlight the potential of VCMA-MTJ-based TCAM for high-density, energy-efficient memory applications that offer significant improvements in reliability and performance over existing technologies. Future efforts will focus on further reducing energy consumption while maintaining the demonstrated high reliability.