Method for automatic resource reservation and communication that facilitates using multiple processing events for a single processing task

A method of processing events related to communication packets in an integrated circuit which includes a core processor and a co-processor having a state information buffer for storing state information for an event separate from the data associated with said event, said state information buffer having an associated in use counter, the method comprising:

• incrementing the in-use counter associated with said state information buffer when an event is associated with said state information buffer;
• and
• decrementing the in-use counter of said state information buffer when said event associated with said buffer is finished.

An integrated circuit for processing events associated with communication packets which includes a core processor and a co-processor, the improvement which comprises, separate buffers for data and state information and in-use counters for all of said buffers, whereby the contents of a data can be passed from one event to another event, each of said events having state information in a separate state information buffer.

An integrated circuit for processing events related to communication packets, said integrated circuit comprising:

• a core processor configured to execute software to process a series of communication packets, the processing of each packet being an event and having associated data, state and context information;
• and
• a co-processor having a plurality buffers which separately store data, state and context information associated with events wherein each of said data, state and context buffers having an in-use counter indicating the number of events associated with said buffer.