Multiplexing in photonics as a resource for optical ternary content-addressable memory functionality

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Optical Computing
• Integrated Circuits

Background:

• Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) is crucial for high-speed data retrieval.
• Existing electronic CAMs (E-CAMs) face limitations in speed and scalability.
• Photonic technologies offer potential for overcoming electronic limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and demonstrate novel photonic Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) architectures.
• To integrate optical multiplexing techniques with CAM encoding schemes.
• To explore the feasibility of silicon photonic (SiPh) implementations for optical ternary CAM (O-TCAM).

Main Methods:

• Combined a CAM encoding scheme with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and time-division multiplexing (TDM).
• Designed and implemented O-TCAMs using microring-based silicon photonic (SiPh) circuits.
• Experimentally demonstrated O-TCAM functionality and simulated performance.

Main Results:

• Achieved experimental O-TCAM functionality in SiPh up to $$.
• Simulated feasibility for speeds up to 10 Gbps, 10x faster than E-TCAMs.
• Identified trade-offs in energy consumption per symbol compared to E-TCAMs.

Conclusions:

• Novel WDM and TDM O-TCAM architectures are feasible using SiPh circuits.
• Photonic CAMs offer significant speed advantages over electronic counterparts.
• Further research is needed to optimize energy efficiency for practical applications.