A data compression/decompression processor implements a modified Ziv-Lempel ("LZ") coding technique. The processor includes three modules, an interface, a coder-decoder ("CODEC"), and a MODEL. The CODEC and the MODEL modules together form compression engine, in which the CODEC provides variable length coding and data packing, and the MODEL implements the LZ processing. The MODEL uses content addressable memory ("CAM") in encoding mode for text storage and character matching, and uses CAM in decoding mode as an on-chip RAM to obtain high speed access.