A cache for an associative memory

We use aggregation techniques to represent an associative memory by a smaller memory, which we call a cache, which approximates it. There is never a cache miss as in the case of RAM, but rather a degradation of the information sought, a soft miss. Three variants are given, and the degradation error is characterized for each. The discrete Fourier transform provides an example. In the appendix, we sketch an approach to refinement of the memory approximation. (C) Elsevier Science Inc., 1997