Highly parallel programmable packet editing engine with a scalable control infrastructure

A device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory device containing instructions, which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
• processing a received ingress packet;
• parsing the received ingress packet to identify one or more headers in the received ingress packet;
• assigning the one or more headers of the received ingress packet to a number of zones, wherein each zone is a grouping of adjacent headers that are closely related to one another by information content or processing type;
• performing offset computations for the one or more headers in a zone concurrently with offset computations of headers assigned to other zones;
• performing different header operations on the one or more headers concurrently with respective ones of a plurality of editing engines to produce edited one or more headers;
• combining the edited one or more headers at the computed offsets to generate a modified egress packet;
• and
• providing, for transmission, the modified egress packet.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions executable by one or more processors, the instructions comprising:

• instructions for receiving an ingress packet having one or more headers;
• instructions for assigning the one or more headers of the ingress packet to a number of zones, wherein each zone is a grouping of adjacent headers that are closely related to one another by information content or processing type;
• instructions for performing offset computations for the one or more headers in a zone concurrently with offset computations of headers assigned to other zones;
• instructions for performing different edit operations on the one or more headers concurrently with respective ones of a plurality of editing engines to produce edited one or more headers;
• instructions for combining the edited one or more headers using the computed offsets to generate a modified egress packet;
• and
• instructions for providing, for transmission, the modified egress packet.