Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

content addressable memory
     
        (CAM, or "associative memory") A kind of storage device which
        includes comparison logic with each bit of storage.  A data
        value is broadcast to all words of storage and compared with
        the values there.  Words which match are flagged in some way.
        Subsequent operations can then work on flagged words, e.g. read
        them out one at a time or write to certain bit positions in
        all of them.  A CAM can thus operate as a {data parallel}
        ({SIMD}) processor.
     
        CAMs are often used in {cache}s and {memory management unit}s.
     
        (1995-02-16)