The present disclosure illustrates a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) device for software defined networking and method thereof. In the TCAM device, M bits of each forwarding rule is stored as a first part into a NAND-Type TCAM, and N bits of the same forwarding rule is stored as a second part into a NOR-Type TCAM. M bits of searching data is compared with the first part to generate a first matching result, N bits of the searching data is compared with the second part to generate a second matching result when the first matching result indicates match, and comparing process for the second part is disabled when the first matching result indicates mismatch. The mechanism is help to improve flexibility of the TCAM in words length and to reduce power consumption.