Ternary content-addressable memory is becoming a common extension to network processors, and its capability and speed make it attractive for high-speed networks. The authors' TCAM-based scheme produces multimatch classification results with about 10 times fewer memory lookups than a pure software approach. In addition, their scheme for removing negation in rule sets saves up to 95 percent of the TCAM space used by a straightforward implementation.
Citation:
Fang Yu, Randy H. Katz, T.V. Lakshman, "Efficient Multimatch Packet Classification and Lookup with TCAM," IEEE Micro, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 50-59, Jan./Feb. 2005, doi:10.1109/MM.2005.8