28. The TCAM of claim 26 , wherein the at least one of the cascaded comparison stage comprises a mask cell configured to: generate a mask value; and close the at least one switching element in response to the mask value being asserted.
29. The TCAM of claim 28 , wherein the at least one of the cascaded comparison stage further comprises a mismatch indicating circuit configured to generate a mismatch indication at the output in response to the comparison circuit indicating a mismatch between the value of the first portion of the search word and the corresponding value of the first portion of the stored word, and the mask value being de-asserted.