The functional block diagram of the core is shown in the following figure.
Figure 1.
Core Block
Diagram
The previous figure contains the following sub-blocks:
- CAM Database
- Memory and registers for storage of rules and logic for algorithmic lookup matching.
- Lookup Request FIFO (Optional)
- Transfers Lookup Requests from the Lookup Frequency domain to the RAM Frequency domain.
- Lookup Response FIFO (Optional)
- Transfers Lookup Responses from the RAM Frequency domain to the Lookup Frequency domain.
- Management Request FIFO
- Buffering queue for input Management Requests.
- Management Response FIFO
- Buffering queue for Management Responses.
- Strict Priority Scheduler
- Schedules lookup and Management Requests.
- AXI4-Lite interface slave
- Protocol handling for accepting read/write requests and generating responses. The AXI4-Lite interface uses 13 bits of address and 32 bits of data.
The following clock domains are depicted in the block diagram:
- AXI4-Stream Lookup Interface Frequency
- The clock frequency of the Lookup Request/Response interfaces. Depending on configuration parameters a new Lookup Request may arrive every cycle, every second cycle, every fourth cycle, etc.
- RAM Frequency
- The clock frequency of the internal RAM and match logic.
- AXI4-Lite Frequency
- The clock frequency of the AXI Lite bus.
The clocking of the CAM can be set to one of two modes:
- Single Clock Mode
- If the Lookup Interface Frequency and RAM Frequency are equal, then the RAM clock is not used and the Lookup Request/Response FIFOs are removed completely.
- Dual Clock Mode
- If the RAM Frequency is higher than the Lookup Interface Frequency, shallow FIFOs are inserted to bridge the clock domains.