1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to electronic devices and, more specifically, in certain embodiments, to parallel finite state machines for pattern-recognition.
2. Description of Related Art
In the field of computing, pattern recognition tasks are increasingly challenging. Ever larger volumes of data are transmitted between computers, and the number of patterns that users wish to detect is increasing. For example, spam and malware are often detected by searching for patterns in a data stream, e.g., particular phrases or pieces of code. The number of patterns increases with the variety of spam and malware, as new patterns may be implemented to search for new variants.
Recognizing a pattern may often involve determining whether various combinations of matched conditions indicative of the pattern are met. Boolean logic may be implemented to determine various combinations of matched conditions in pattern-recognition computing. For example, AND, OR, NOR, and NAND gates may be used to determine various combinations of matched conditions. The inventors have determined that it may be useful to increase the versatility of Boolean logic by increasing the number of logical operations available for pattern-recognition computing.