An invention is provided for using a comparand provided to a CAM for multiple CAM operations without requiring the comparand to be reloaded from a host processor for each CAM operation. The invention includes a comparand data register that is capable of storing a comparand. Associated with the comparand data register, is a plurality of result registers. In operation, the comparand is provided as input data to the CAM for a plurality of search operations. For each search operation, the result is stored in one of the plurality of result registers. In this manner, the comparand stored in the data register can be reused for multiple search operations, with each result stored in a separate result register.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/384,873 filed May 29, 2002, and entitled "Comparand Reuse," which is incorporated herein by reference.
