CAM, TCAM in Stratix

Hi,
I am working on a 10 Gb Ethernet project (deep packet inspection) and need
to implement CAM in my FPGA. I am using a Stratix GX and I don't think I
can use CAM (internal or external) in the stratix GX Dev Board.

Let me know your thoughts about that.

Thanks a lot.

Freechip,

http://www.xilinx.com/products/design_resources/mem_corner/grouping/cam.htm

I am not suggesting you switch to Xilinx, but we do have answers.

Austin

freechip wrote:

> Hi,
> I am working on a 10 Gb Ethernet project (deep packet inspection) and need
> to implement CAM in my FPGA. I am using a Stratix GX and I don't think I
> can use CAM (internal or external) in the stratix GX Dev Board.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts about that.
> 
> Thanks a lot.

"freechip" <freechip@hotmail.fr> wrote in message 
news:VqSdnSn0Kpv2YtXZRVn_vA@giganews.com...
>
> Hi,
> I am working on a 10 Gb Ethernet project (deep packet inspection) and need
> to implement CAM in my FPGA. I am using a Stratix GX and I don't think I
> can use CAM (internal or external) in the stratix GX Dev Board.
>
> Let me know your thoughts about that.
>
> Thanks a lot.

How big a (Ternary?)CAM do you need? 

>"freechip" <freechip@hotmail.fr> wrote in message 
>news:VqSdnSn0Kpv2YtXZRVn_vA@giganews.com...
>>
>> Hi,
>> I am working on a 10 Gb Ethernet project (deep packet inspection) and
need
>> to implement CAM in my FPGA. I am using a Stratix GX and I don't think
I
>> can use CAM (internal or external) in the stratix GX Dev Board.
>>
>> Let me know your thoughts about that.
>>
>> Thanks a lot.
>
>How big a (Ternary?)CAM do you need? 
>
>

Hi,
I don't yet. 
Do you think it is possible with Altera products?
Have a good day.

Hi freechip,

yes I think it is possible to build a CAM
around Altera RAM blocks.

How big is the CAM ? After how many clock cycles
do you need a hit ?

Rgds
Andr=E9

>Hi freechip,
>
>yes I think it is possible to build a CAM
>around Altera RAM blocks.
>
>How big is the CAM ? After how many clock cycles
>do you need a hit ?
>
>Rgds
>Andr=E9
>
>

Hi Andr,
Actually, I am in the research phase and I really don't know how big is
the cam. I just wanted to know, to compare to Xilinx Family, if it was
poosible to use cam with Altera product. For my project (deep packet
inspection), the use of the cam is necessary.
If you can tell me how can a build a cam around Altera RAM block (and the
max. of the cam without my answers to your questions), I will be very
pleased.

Thanks.

>>How big a (Ternary?)CAM do you need? 
>>
>>
freechip wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I don't yet. 
> Do you think it is possible with Altera products?
> Have a good day.

It's possible to build teeny, tiny CAMs.  The information Austin pointed 
out gives you an idea of what you can accomplish with FPGA resources 
that can apply to all FPGAs, not just Xilinx.

If you need a few entries, you might be okay.  If you need small 
entries, you may be able to do many more.

Read that documentation and you'll get a feel for the limits you're 
faced with.

Personally, I'd love a 4kx20 CAM but I know there's no way to do it in 
an FPGA>

John_H wrote:

> It's possible to build teeny, tiny CAMs.  The information Austin pointed 
> out gives you an idea of what you can accomplish with FPGA resources 
> that can apply to all FPGAs, not just Xilinx.
> 
> If you need a few entries, you might be okay.  If you need small 
> entries, you may be able to do many more.

However, if you plan decode 32 bit or 128 bit IP addresses,
an FPGA solution will likely cost just as much and not
work quite as well as a real CAM.

   -- Mike Treseler

"Mike Treseler" <mike_treseler@comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:4b4hneFvg226U1@individual.net...
>
> However, if you plan decode 32 bit or 128 bit IP addresses,
> an FPGA solution will likely cost just as much and not
> work quite as well as a real CAM.
>
>   -- Mike Treseler

But if each 128-bit IP address only needs 4 slices and the number of IP 
addresses is rather limited, the cost can be much better than a real CAM. 

Thanks a lot for your answers.
Actually, I can not tell you more about the size of the CAM.
You are talking about the size but did you implement cam in Altera
(Stratix?) because I didn't see it was possible to put cam in Stratix in
Altera's website.
Have a nice day.

Freechip