An apparatus comprising: a table comprising a plurality of entries; and compression circuitry comprising a plurality of hardware lanes, wherein in response to receiving an indication of a compression instruction, the compression circuitry is configured to: assign a first group of two or more input words to two or more of the plurality of hardware lanes; responsive to determining that at least a first input word and a second input word of the first group of two or more input words correspond to a same entry of the table , generate for the first input word and the second input word: a single read request for the table to retrieve data stored in a single entry of the plurality of entries to compare to only one of the first input word and the second input word; and a single write request for the table to update data stored in the single entry of the plurality of entries with data of only one of the first input word and the second input word; and generate a compression packet for each of the first input word and the second input word. a table comprising a plurality of entries; and compression circuitry comprising a plurality of hardware lanes, wherein in response to receiving an indication of a compression instruction, the compression circuitry is configured to: assign a first group of two or more input words to two or more of the plurality of hardware lanes; responsive to determining that at least a first input word and a second input word of the first group of two or more input words correspond to a same entry of the table , generate for the first input word and the second input word: a single read request for the table to retrieve data stored in a single entry of the plurality of entries to compare to only one of the first input word and the second input word; and a single write request for the table to update data stored in the single entry of the plurality of entries with data of only one of the first input word and the second input word; and generate a compression packet for each of the first input word and the second input word. assign a first group of two or more input words to two or more of the plurality of hardware lanes; responsive to determining that at least a first input word and a second input word of the first group of two or more input words correspond to a same entry of the table , generate for the first input word and the second input word: a single read request for the table to retrieve data stored in a single entry of the plurality of entries to compare to only one of the first input word and the second input word; and a single write request for the table to update data stored in the single entry of the plurality of entries with data of only one of the first input word and the second input word; and generate a compression packet for each of the first input word and the second input word. a single read request for the table to retrieve data stored in a single entry of the plurality of entries to compare to only one of the first input word and the second input word; and a single write request for the table to update data stored in the single entry of the plurality of entries with data of only one of the first input word and the second input word; and generate a compression packet for each of the first input word and the second input word. <EOS>