Patent ID: 7996348

Claim:
A memory architecture comprising at least one programmable intelligent search memory (PRISM) for content search wherein said at least one PRISM performs regular expression based content search and comprises a plurality of programmable memory clusters for programming rules for said content search, said programmable memory clusters further comprising a plurality of programmable search engines to perform said content search using a plurality of regular expressions, said plurality of regular expressions converted into a functionally equivalent plurality of finite state automata to program in said plurality of programmable search engines, said plurality of regular expressions comprising a plurality of symbols and/or characters, said plurality of regular expressions converted into said plurality of finite state automata representing functionality of said plurality of regular expressions for programming in said at least one PRISM, said plurality of finite state automata comprising a plurality of states, said plurality of states derived from said plurality of symbols and/or characters of said plurality of regular expressions, wherein content comprises a plurality of input symbols provided as input to said at least one PRISM, said at least one PRISM comprising a plurality of Finite State Automata (FSA) rule blocks to program said plurality of finite state automata and to search said content using said plurality of finite state automata to detect at least one match of said regular expressions in said content, said plurality of finite state automata comprising ‘n’ states corresponding to ‘n’ symbols of said regular expression, said ‘n’ symbols comprising ‘m’ bits wherein ‘n’ and ‘m’ are each integer values greater than one, wherein the at least one PRISM comprises at least one bit interval counter.