Frame forwarding in a switch fabric

A network switch fabric for forwarding data comprising:

• means for receiving an incoming data packet at a first port of the fabric;
• means for reading a first packet portion, less than a full packet length, to determine particular packet information, said particular packet information including an opcode value;
• means for reading a particular forwarding table of a plurality forwarding tables based on the opcode value;
• means for determining an egress port bitmap based on entries read from the particular forwarding table;
• means for forwarding the incoming data packet based on the egress port bitmap.

A network switch fabric for forwarding data comprising:

• at least one ingress port interface, having at least one ingress port and an ingress logic block that determines forwarding of packets;
• at least one egress port interface, having at least one egress port;
• a bus ring connected to the at least one ingress port interface and the at least one egress interface;
• a memory management unit connected with said bus ring;
• and
• a packet pool memory connected to the memory management unit, for storing packet data;
• wherein the ingress logic block forwards a data packet based on an opcode value read from a header of the data packet.