Patent ID: 8717794

Claim:
A check engine comprising: a plurality of comparators each including: a first directional characteristic aligned to store at least one reference bit included in a set of reference bits; and a second directional characteristic aligned to present at least one target bit included in a set of target bits; wherein each of the plurality of comparators is configured to produce an output representing a level of matching between the at least one target bit and the at least one reference bit, based on a relative alignment between the first directional characteristic and the second directional characteristic; and wherein the check engine is configured such that the outputs of the plurality of comparators are combined to produce a combined output; wherein the check engine is configured to determine that the set of target bits matches the set of reference bits based on the combined output of the plurality of comparators; wherein to determine that the set of target bits matches the set of reference bits, the check engine is configured to compare the combined output of the plurality of comparators to a self-referenced output of the plurality of comparators corresponding to a full matching configuration; and wherein the check engine is configured to determine the self-referenced output of the plurality of comparators in a separate cycle prior to determining that the set of target bits matches the set of reference bits.