Associative memories and processors: An overview and selected bibliography

Abstract

A survey of associative processing, techniques is presented, together with a guide to the published literature in this field. Some familiarity with the basic concepts of associative-processing is assumed. The references have been divided into four groups dealing with architectural concepts, hardware implementation, software considerations, and application areas. The discussion of architectural concepts consists of a classification of associative devices into four major categories (fully parallel, bit-serial, word-serial, and block-oriented) and an enumeration of techniques for dealing with multiple responses and hardware faults. With respect to hardware implementation, considerations are given to the basic operations implemented, hardware elements used (e.g., cryoelectrics, magnetic elements, and semiconductors), and physical characteristics such as speed, size, and cost. The discussion of software aspects of associative devices deals with synthesis of algorithms, programming problems, and software simulation. The application areas discussed include solution of some mathematical systems, radar signal processing, information storage and retrieval, and performance of certain control functions in computer systems.