This paper presents the ASIC design and implementation of a special purpose processor for syntactic recognition of context-free languages. The machine is an associative processor that takes advantage of the single-instruction multiple-data stream (SIMD) parallel processing capability of a content-addressable memory (CAM), designed to operate as a coprocessor in systems with an I.S.A. bus (IBM PC/AT). The processor is designed and implemented with multiple ASIC components, including both a full-custom content-addressable memory device and multiple Programmable Logic Devices (FPGA/PLD).< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>