Hardware implemented data layer for processing compressed columnar data

An integrated circuit for line-rate processing of compressed columnar data, the integrated circuit comprising:

• a column loader to load first compressed columnar data associated with a first column and second compressed columnar data associated with a second column into a first on-chip buffer;
• a balancer to perform time-shared processing of the first compressed columnar data and the second compressed columnar data from the first on-chip buffer and load the processed first compressed columnar data and second compressed columnar data into a second on-chip buffer;
• a transcoder to transcode the first compressed columnar data and the second compressed columnar data from the second on-chip buffer into first unified columnar data and second unified columnar data having a unified format and load the first unified columnar data and second unified columnar data into a third on-chip buffer, wherein the first unified columnar data and the second unified columnar data in the third on-chip buffer are logically aligned;
• and
• a decoder to perform value-wise decoding of at least a portion of the first unified columnar data or the second unified columnar data from the third on-chip buffer into first decoded columnar data and second decoded columnar data and provide the first decoded columnar data and the second decoded columnar data to a query operator,
• wherein at least one of the first compressed columnar data or the second compressed columnar data comprises at least one of:
• a uniform block tuple comprising a length indicating a number of rows in a uniform block of consecutive rows of the first column or the second column that share a common row value, and the common row value shared by consecutive rows of uniform block;
• or
• a nonuniform block tuple comprising length indicating a number of rows in a nonuniform block of consecutive rows of the first column or the second column that do not share a common value, and a pointer to a position in a value array comprising row values of nonuniform blocks of the first column or the second column.