A method comprising: receiving at one of a plurality of ports of a network device a packet including a plurality of field sets, each field set including one or more fields at a common network layer; parsing field sets from the packet comprising parsing packets received at each of the ports to generate multiple field sets for each packet received at a corresponding port; providing a plurality of field set arbiters each having a corresponding decision logic unit, each field set arbiter being configured to arbitrate, for the corresponding decision logic unit, among a plurality field sets obtained from packets received at the plurality of ports, and supply field sets obtained from the parsing to the corresponding decision logic unit; providing a plurality of decision logic units each associated with a field set arbiter and each configured to determine whether a processing decision can be made for a packet based on a particular field set of the packet, and evaluating field sets of the packet to determine whether a processing decision can be made on the packet as soon as field sets are available and in parallel with said parsing; synchronizing operation of the plurality of decision logic units on field sets for a plurality of packets comprising receiving a plurality of processing decision results from the plurality of decision logic units for a plurality of packets, and arbitrating among the plurality of processing decision results according to a scheduling priority based on a first-come first-serve basis or based on one or more packet parameters; and terminating the evaluating of field sets once it is determined that a processing decision can be made such that any further field sets, at different network layers of the packet, not yet evaluated, are ignored for purposes of making the processing decision for the packet, wherein terminating comprises sending a control signal to one or more decision logic units evaluating deeper field sets of a given packet when a processing decision has been made for the packet so that evaluating of the deeper field sets is terminated and/or a processing decision obtained for one or more deeper field sets belonging to the same packet is removed from the arbitrating. receiving at one of a plurality of ports of a network device a packet including a plurality of field sets, each field set including one or more fields at a common network layer; parsing field sets from the packet comprising parsing packets received at each of the ports to generate multiple field sets for each packet received at a corresponding port; providing a plurality of field set arbiters each having a corresponding decision logic unit, each field set arbiter being configured to arbitrate, for the corresponding decision logic unit, among a plurality field sets obtained from packets received at the plurality of ports, and supply field sets obtained from the parsing to the corresponding decision logic unit; providing a plurality of decision logic units each associated with a field set arbiter and each configured to determine whether a processing decision can be made for a packet based on a particular field set of the packet, and evaluating field sets of the packet to determine whether a processing decision can be made on the packet as soon as field sets are available and in parallel with said parsing; synchronizing operation of the plurality of decision logic units on field sets for a plurality of packets comprising receiving a plurality of processing decision results from the plurality of decision logic units for a plurality of packets, and arbitrating among the plurality of processing decision results according to a scheduling priority based on a first-come first-serve basis or based on one or more packet parameters; and terminating the evaluating of field sets once it is determined that a processing decision can be made such that any further field sets, at different network layers of the packet, not yet evaluated, are ignored for purposes of making the processing decision for the packet, wherein terminating comprises sending a control signal to one or more decision logic units evaluating deeper field sets of a given packet when a processing decision has been made for the packet so that evaluating of the deeper field sets is terminated and/or a processing decision obtained for one or more deeper field sets belonging to the same packet is removed from the arbitrating.