Patent ID: 9571380
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method, comprising: receiving a packet at a packet processing element, among a plurality of like packet processing elements, of a network device; generating, by the packet processing element, a request specifying a processing operation to be performed with respect to the packet by an accelerator engine functionally different from the plurality of like packet processing elements; transmitting the request from the packet processing element to an interconnect network, the interconnect network including a plurality of interconnect units arranged in stages; determining a path through the interconnect network, wherein the path is selected among a plurality of candidate paths, wherein no path of the candidate paths includes multiple interconnect units within a same stage of the interconnect network; transmitting the request, via the determined path, to a particular accelerator engine among multiple candidate accelerator engines configured to perform the processing operation; and performing the processing operation by the particular accelerator engine.