Patent ID: 7313666
Filing Date: 2007-12-25
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for routing or manipulating packets or other information, the apparatus comprising: one or more basic control units each including control logic and one or more first lookup units; and a supervisor control unit including control logic and a memory, the supervisor control unit coupled to each of said one or more basic control units; wherein the supervisor control unit is configured to maintain routing information, to partition said routing information into a plurality of routing information subsets such that for a particular prefix in a particular routing information subset, the particular routing information subset includes all longer prefixes beginning with said particular prefix in said routing information, and to distribute routing information subsets to said one or more basic control units; and wherein each of the one or more basic control units is configured to receive said routing information subsets, to populate its one or more first lookup units with said received routing information subsets, and to perform lookup operations in its one or more first lookup units to generate a result based on a route identifier; and wherein said partitioning the routing information includes deriving a Patricia tree representation of the routing information; and wherein the supervisor control unit is configured to repartition the routing information among the plurality of routing information subsets, said repartitioning including modifying a boundary between a first and a second subsets of the plurality of routing information subsets.