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US 11,765,069 B2Granted
Hierarchical hardware linked list approach for multicast replication engine in a network ASIC
AssigneeMarvell Asia Pte Ltd
InventorsGerald Schmidt, Harish Krishnamoorthy, Tsahi Daniel
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multicast rule is represented in a hierarchical linked list with N tiers. Each tier or level in the hierarchical linked list corresponds to a network layer of a network stack that requires replication. Redundant groups in each tier are eliminated such that the groups in each tier are stored exactly once in a replication table. A multicast replication engine traverses the hierarchical linked list and replicates a packet according to each node in the hierarchical linked list.
Claims16
A network chip comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a non-transitory computer readable memory storing a multicast destination table including a list of interfaces, wherein the list of interfaces includes an identifier of a main interface upon which a data packet is able to be transmitted and at least one identifier of at least one alternative interface upon which the data packet is able to be transmitted, wherein both the main interface and the at least one alternative interface reach the same destination, wherein an entry of the multicast destination table includes a pointer to a next interface in the list of interfaces, destination information, a “first live enabled” field and a “live” field.
A method of implementing a multicast replication engine, the method comprising:
- storing a list of interfaces in a multicast destination table with the multicast replication engine on a network switch, wherein the list of interfaces includes an identifier of a main interface upon which a data packet is able to be transmitted and at least one identifier of at least one alternative interface upon which a data packet is able to be transmitted, wherein both the main interface and the at least one alternative interface reach the same destination;
- and
- transmitting the data packet to the destination with the multicast replication engine using the main interface or one of the alternative interfaces, wherein entries of the multicast destination table include a pointer to a next interface in the list of interfaces, destination information, a “first live enabled” field and a “live” field.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.