Patent ID: 6799267
Filing Date: 2004-09-28
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A packet processor comprising:a general-purpose register for retaining packet data inputted from a bus; a general-purpose arithmetic operator performing a programmed general-purpose arithmetic operation on a particular field of the packet data, which is retained by said general-purpose register, in accordance with a general-purpose arithmetic operation instruction; a programmable field extracting circuit extracting information of an arbitrary field having an arbitrary length from said general-purpose register as object field information, on which the programmed general-purpose arithmetic operation is to be performed by said general-purpose arithmetic operator, in accordance with a field extraction instruction; and a programmable field writing circuit writing a result of the arithmetic operation by said general-purpose arithmetic operator into said general-purpose register as updated information of the extracted field, while preventing that information in other fields from being overwritten, in accordance with a field write instruction.