Method and apparatus for a high-speed frame tagger

An apparatus, comprising:

• a network processor interface;
• a central processor interface;
• a protocol determination logic block to determine a protocol type of data in a packet, wherein the protocol determination logic block compares protocol information of the packet in a first pass to predetermined values to produce a first result;
• and
• a tag select logic block to apply a tag to the packet indicating that the packet should be sent to either the central processor interface or the network processor interface based on the first result, if the first result is negative.

An apparatus, comprising:

• means for extracting protocol information from a received packet within a framer;
• means for comparing the protocol information in a first pass to predetermined values to produce a first result;
• and
• means for tagging tile packet based on the first result if the first result is negative;
• the method further comprising means for comparing the protocol information in a second pass to predetermined values, if the first result is positive, to produce a second result, wherein the first and second results form a set of results.