A CAM system includes two or more CAM devices having the same device
identification number (DID). One or more priority address bits indicating
priority between the CAM devices may be assigned to each CAM device. Each
CAM device may receive a mode signal indicating whether the CAM device
operates independently or in cooperation with other cascaded CAM devices.
During compare operations, each CAM device generates a highest priority
match (HPM) index. A selected number of the priority address bits are
inserted between the DID and the HPM index to form a device index for the
system. During read and write operations, a first portion of an input
address is used to select a row of CAM cells in each CAM device. A second
portion of the input address is compared to a selected number of the
priority address bits to enable an array in one of the CAM devices.
