Patent ID: 6337862
Filing Date: 2002-01-08
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A network switch including:a multiplicity of ports for the reception and forwarding of addressed data packets including network destination data and network source address data; and a forwarding database having a trie search facility organized in blocks of pointers, said trie search facility accessing said blocks in response to respective segments of a search key, each of said pointers identifying in a last stage of a search forwarding data identifying each port from which a packet should be forwarded and identifying in any stage of the search prior to said last stage a block of pointers; the switch including means operable before the trie search facility is utilized for a given packet to compare a network destination address of said given packet with at least one stored address and when said network destination address matches said stored address to access the network source address data of said given packet for use as the search key.