SEARCH CIRCUIT

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a search circuit which can avoid remarkable increase of a circuit scale and have no influence on a search cycle count upon bifurcation search. SOLUTION: The search circuit for identifying one of a plurality of key values coinciding with an input key value through bifurcation search over a memory having the plurality of key values associated with a plurality of result values stored therein includes a means for previously generating first to fourth read addresses as candidates to be next read out from the memory, a means for selecting one of the first and third read addresses and giving the selected address to the memory, a means for selecting one of the second and fourth read addresses and giving the selected address to the memory, a means comparing read-out data from the memory based on the read-out first or third address with the input key value, a means for comparing read-out data from the memory based on the second or fourth read-out address with the input key value, and a means for controlling the read-out address selection according to the comparison results with the input key value. COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT