Patent ID: 7664112
Filing Date: 2010-02-16
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A packet processing apparatus for transferring a packet received from one or more receiving ports, comprising: a packet processing engine performing packet processing on the packet; a search engine performing search processing on the packet; and a bus connecting the packet processing engine and the search engine, the bus having a bandwidth which is equal to or greater than a total transmission bandwidth of the one or more receiving ports, wherein the packet processing engine is configured to append a device internal header containing a search key to the packet received from the one or more receiving ports, transfer the packet appended with the device internal headers to the search engine through the bus, and receive the packet whose device internal header is provided with search result information from the search engine through the bus, and the search engine is configured to include: a packet buffer temporarily storing the packet transferred from the packet processing engine through the bus; a search processing part performing search processing on the basis of the search key in the device internal header; a sequence number management part providing a sequence number to the packet received from the packet processing engine; a loop control part performing packet loop processing on the packet on the basis of the sequence number, the packet loop processing stepwise appending search processing to the packet by transferring the packet repeatedly between the packet processing engine and the search engine; and a search result output part transmitting search result information of the packet on which the loop processing has completed to the packet processing engine, in ascending order of a first received time of the packet from the packet processing engine, the first received time of the packet indicating a received time of the packet before the loop processing begins.