be implemented is shown in cliff et al u s pat no 5 550 782 it will be understood however that this pld architecture is only one example of pld architectures in which this invention can be implemented and that any other suitable pld architecture can be employed if desired also as has been said the invention can be alternatively implemented in contexts other than plds e g in suitable asics and systems including multiple memory chips such other possible uses will be fully understood from the following description which deals mostly with illustrative pld embodiments of the invention fig1 a and 1 b are collectively a table showing several parameters that are involved in configuring a pld or analogously any other circuitry e g an asic or multi chip system with suitable resources to emulate a cam in accordance with this invention the heading of the fourth column indicates that all parameter values are expected to be integers two functions u201c truncate u201d and u201c ceil u201d may be used to force certain calculations to integer values in particular the truncate function rounds a non integer value down to the next lower integer value and the ceil function rounds a non integer value up to the next higher integer value a third function u201c min u201d selects the lower of two indicated values lines 1 3 in fig1 a indicate that the user may specify the size.