Hardware Systems for Text Information Retrieval

As databases become very large, conventional digital computers cannot provide satisfactory response time. This is particularly true for text databases, which must often be several orders of magnitude larger than formatted databases to store a useful amount of information. Even the standard techniques for improving system performance (such as inverted files) may not be sufficient to give the desired performance, and the use of an unconventional hardware organization may become necessary.A variety of different organizations has been proposed to enhance processing of text retrieval operations. Most of these have concentrated on the design of fast, efficient search engines. These can be divided into three classes: associative memories, cellular pattern matchers, and finite state automata. The advantages and disadvantages inherent in each of these approaches are discussed, along with a number of proposed implementations. Finally, the text retrieval system under development at the University of Utah is discussed in more detail.