Packet processing device

A packet processing device for processing received packets with a series of instructions, comprising:

• a packet buffer for storing a received packet, comprising a plurality of data registers with a fixed data length;
• an address register storing a protocol header pointer indicating where in said packet buffer a protocol header starts;
• and
• an operation unit which manipulates the received packet, adjusting alignment of each field on a data register boundary of said packet buffer according to the protocol header pointer in said address register in conjunction with field location parameters contained as immediate operands in the instructions to indicate locations of fields constituting the protocol header and specify how to treat the fields, whereby the same series of instructions can be used to read and/or write a particular field in the protocol header, regardless of protocol stack structure of the received packet.

A method of processing received packets with a series of instructions, comprising the steps of:

• storing a received packet in a packet buffer comprising a plurality of data registers with a fixed data length;
• storing protocol header pointer indicating where in the packet buffer a protocol header starts;
• storing field location parameters that indicate locations of fields constituting the protocol header and specify how to treat the fields;
• and
• manipulating the received packet, adjusting alignment of each field on a data register boundary of the packet buffer according to the protocol header pointer and field location parameters being stored, whereby the same series of instructions can be used to read and/or write a particular field in the protocol header, regardless of protocol stack structure of the received packet.

A packet routing device which forwards packets over a network, comprising:

• (a) a packet processing device, comprising:
• a packet buffer for storing a received packet, comprising a plurality of data registers with a fixed data length,
• an address register storing protocol header pointer indicating where in said packet buffer a protocol header starts,
• a field address table storing field location parameters that indicate locations of fields constituting the protocol header and specify how to treat the fields, and
• an operation unit which manipulates the received packet, adjusting alignment of each field on a data register boundary of said packet buffer according to the protocol header pointer in said address register and the field location parameters in said field address table, whereby the same series of instructions can be used to read and/or write a particular field, regardless of protocol stack structure of the received packet;
• and
• (b) a packet forwarding controller that forwards received packets toward destinations thereof, based on results of processing by said packet processing device.