METHODS FOR WRITING TERNARY CONTENT ADDRESSABLE MEMORY DEVICES

Ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) devices are described. The TCAMs described herein are designed to perform write operations-including data writes and mask writes-in a single clock cycle. For example, data input is written in a row of the TCAM during the first portion of a clock cycle, and a mask is written in another row of the TCAM during the second portion of the clock cycle. In one implementation, a first bus is used both for data write and key search operations, and a second bus is used both for mask write and search masking operations. In another implementation, a first bus is used both for data write and key search operations, a second bus is used for mask write operations, and a third bus is used for search masking operations.