What does CAM stand for in networking hardware?

• A. Content Access Module
• B. Content Addressable Memory
• C. Central Addressing Module
• D. Cache Address Memory

Answer: (B)

Content Addressable Memory is a type of hardware memory used in networking gear that is searched by the data it contains rather than by a specific address. You feed it a value (like a MAC address or an ACL field), and the CAM hardware checks all stored entries in parallel to find a match, returning the location or data of the matching entry. This enables ultra-fast lookups for forwarding decisions, MAC address tables, and ACLs in switches and routers. Ordinary RAM requires addressing a location first, which is why CAM’s content-based approach is what makes it especially valuable in high-speed network hardware. The other phrases aren’t standard networking terms and don’t describe this content-driven lookup capability.