Butterfly match-line structure and search method implemented thereby

Abstract

The present invention discloses a butterfly match-line structure and a search method implemented thereby, wherein the parallelism of the match lines is increased to shorten the search time, and a butterfly-type connection is used to reduce the power consumption and achieve the best energy efficiency. Via the butterfly-type connection, information can be reciprocally transmitted between the parallel match lines, which are independent originally. When a miss case occurs, more succeeding memory cells will not be compared but will be turned off. Thereby, the power consumption is reduced. Further, XOR-based conditional keepers are used to reduce the matching time and the power consumption. Besides, such a circuit is also used to shorten the delay time of the butterfly-type connection.