Abstract: A comparison circuit having at least one processing cell in which objects defined by multiple parameters are streamed from a data base through the circuit, and compared with a similarly structured object previously stored in the cell. The object stored in the cell and objects streamed through the cell are all defined by data values indicative of maximum and minimum values of the parameters making up the objects. A match is declared when all parameters of the object stored in the cell overlap the parameter ranges of the objects streamed through the cell. With the use of multiple cells connected in series or in parallel, or in a combination of series and parallel, the processing speed of the comparison circuit is increased linearly with the number of such cells. Therefore, searching of large data bases can be performed at very high speeds and configurations of interconnected processing cells can be easily interconnected and loaded to define a number of objects of interest.

Abstract: A special-purpose search processor, and a related method, for performing a variety of logically complex searches of a serial data stream in a highly concurrent fashion. The processor comprises a sequence of serially connected cells of identical construction, and the data stream is passed through the sequence of cells, each cell performing a logical operation based only on the data provided to it from the previous cell in the sequence. Each cell has a character register for data storage and a pattern register for storage of part of a search pattern. The contents of the two registers are compared in each cell, at each cycle of a clock used to propagate the data through the processor. Match indicators or match tolerance values are propagated through the processor on a match line, and match results emerge in synchronism with the data stream.