Method and system for providing a nonvolatile content addressable memory using a single flotox element

A content addressable memory (CAM) comprising:

• a plurality of CAM cells, each of the plurality of CAM cells including a high voltage portion and a low voltage portion, the high voltage portion including a FLOTOX memory element composed of a single floating gate transistor and a high voltage select transistor, each FLOTOX element capable of storing at least a portion of a data word, the low voltage portion including at least one low voltage transistor capable of comparing the portion of data word stored in the FLOTOX element with the portion of searched word, the plurality of CAM cells corresponding to a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns;
• a plurality of search lines, a first search line and a second search line corresponding to each of the plurality of columns;
• a plurality of comparators including a plurality of low voltage transistors for comparing the data word stored by a portion of the plurality of memory cells, the search word;
• and
• a plurality of match lines corresponding to each of the portion of the plurality of memory cells, the match line indicating whether the search word matches the data word stored by the portion of the plurality of memory cells.

A method for providing a content addressable memory (CAM) comprising:

• providing a plurality of memory cells, each of the plurality of memory cells including a FLOTOX element, the FLOTOX element including a single floating gate transistor and a high voltage select transistor, each of a portion of the plurality of memory cells for storing a data word, each of the plurality of memory cells capable of storing at least a portion of the data word for a corresponding portion of the plurality of memory cells, the at least one low voltage transistor capable of comparing the portion of data word stored in the FLOTOX element with the portion of searched word;
• providing a plurality of search lines for providing a search word;
• providing a plurality of comparators connected with the plurality of search lines and the plurality of memory cells, the plurality of comparator for comparing the data word stored by a portion of the plurality of memory cells and the search word;
• and
• providing a plurality of match lines connected with a plurality of comparators and corresponding to the portion of the plurality of memory cells, the plurality of match lines indicating whether the search word matches the data word stored by the portion of the plurality of memory cells.