Page table search engine

An integrated circuit comprising a search engine for a memory controller, the search engine comprising:

• an interface for communicating with a page table stored in a memory, wherein the page table includes address translations for a processor memory, wherein an address translation associates a processor address with a processor memory address;
• a configuration register operable to store a search parameter;
• and
• a state machine operable to:
• generate a series of read transactions to read entries from the page table, wherein each read transaction reads a different entry, and wherein each read transaction is output using the interface;
• determine, for each of the series of read transactions, whether data read from an entry corresponds to the search parameter, wherein the data is received using the interface;
• and
• output a response indicating whether, for any of the series of read transactions, the data read from the entry corresponds to the search parameter.

A method, comprising:

• generating, by an integrated circuit comprising a search engine for a memory controller, a series of read transactions to read a page table stored in a memory, wherein each entry in the page table includes an address translation for a processor memory, wherein an address translation associates a processor address with a processor memory address, wherein the memory controller changes associations between processor addresses and processor memory addresses, and wherein each read transaction from the series of read transaction reads a different entry from the page table;
• determining, for each of the series of read transactions, whether data read from an entry in the page table corresponds to a search parameter;
• and
• outputting a response indicating whether, for any of the series of read transactions, the data read from the entry corresponds to the search parameter.