Routing table lookup implemented using M-trie having nodes duplicated in multiple memory banks

Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for rapid access to one or more M-tries for responding to header information. The M-tries are stored in a plurality of memory banks, which are accessed in parallel to provide relatively greater access throughput. Parts of the M-tries that are (or are expected to be) frequently referenced are stored in multiple banks of the memory, to provide concurrent simultaneous access for those parts of the M-tries for parallel lookup of multiple routes. Regions of the multiple banks of the memory can be dynamically reallocated to provide improved access through-put to those multiple banks. The invention can be applied to routing decisions in response to destination addresses, to combinations of destination and source addresses (either for unicast or multicast routing), to access control decisions, to quality of service decisions, to accounting, and to other administrative processing in response to header information.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.