Powerful and expandable pipeline architecture for a network device
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorsBrandon Smith, Jun Cao
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A network device for processing data on a data network including a plurality of ports, configured to receive data packets and to send out processed data packets, a modification engine configured to parse, evaluate and modify the data packets to produce the processed data packets and a series of search engine pipeline stages configured to perform lookup searches through a plurality of search engines. The series of search engine pipeline stages perform search requests in sequential processing steps and any stage of the series of search engine pipeline stages may submit a particular search request to the plurality of search engines and receive search results particular to a particular data packet at a respective processing step.
Claims20
A network device for processing data on a data network, the network device comprising:
- a plurality of ports, configured to receive data packets and to send out processed data packets;
- a modification engine, in communication with the plurality of ports, configured to parse, evaluate and modify the data packets to produce the processed data packets;
- and
- a series of search engine pipeline stages, in communication with the modification engine, configured to perform lookup searches through a plurality of search engines;
- wherein the series of search engine pipeline stages perform search requests in sequential processing steps and any stage of the series of search engine pipeline stages may submit a particular search request to the plurality of search engines and receive search results particular to a particular data packet at a respective processing step.
A method for processing data in a network device, the method comprising the steps of:
- receiving data packets at a plurality of ports of a network device;
- processing the received data packets to thereby parse, evaluate and modify the received data packets to produce processed data packets;
- performing lookup searches of tables through a series of search engine pipeline stages;
- and
- forwarding the processed data packets to an egress port of the plurality of ports;
- wherein any stage of the series of search engine pipeline stages submits a particular search request to the plurality of search engines and receives search results particular to a particular data packet at a respective processing step.
A network device for processing data, comprising:
- port means for receiving data packets and forwarding processed data packets;
- processing means for processing the received data packets to thereby parse, evaluate and modify the received data packets to produce processed data packets;
- and
- lookup search means for performing lookup searches of tables, through a series of search engine pipeline stages;
- and
- wherein the lookup search means is configured to allow any stage of the series of search engine pipeline stages to submit a particular search request to at least one of a plurality of search engines and to receive search results particular to a particular data packet.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.