Title:  Context based search using Content Addressable Memory

Committee: 

Dr. Naeemi, Advisor      

Dr. Mukhopadhyay, Chair

Dr. Romberg

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to design unconventional circuits to take advantage of non- volatile memories like Spin Orbit Torque (SOT) and Magnetoelectric (ME) Magnetic random access memory (MRAM). Content addressable memories (CAMs) have proved themselves to be worthy contenders for data-intensive applications. CAMs have been used in many applications for performing similarity and nearest neighbor search. However, challenges like minimum detectable Hamming distance, discharge current saturation and energy and performance efficiency have limited their use. In recommendation models and hyperdimensional computing, the features/bits important to a query while searching through the dataset change for each search cycle based on ’context’. Here we will propose SOT and ME-based CAM design to perform NNS with ’context’. This allows us to improve energy efficiency of CAMs and improves the quality of search.