Patent ID: 6963921

Claim:
A packet accelerator device, comprising: a packet header parser configured to parse packet header fields from incoming packets directed toward a host; a processing mechanism configured to perform packet re-assembly on packets determined to have valid connections with said host; and an address filter configured to identify data parsed from said packet header fields needed for packet re-assembly and place that data in a local memory directly accessible by said processing mechanism; wherein: said address filter comprises, a hashing mechanism configured to determine an index based on at least part of the parsed header fields, a connection table containing connection information indexed by said hashing mechanism, and a forward engine configured to, retrieve connection table values from said connection table corresponding to the incoming packets and compare the retrieved connection table values with the incoming, discard incoming packets that do not have matching connection information in said connection table, forward the incoming packets to the processing mechanism for re-assembly if the incoming packets have matching connection information in said connection table, and retrieve additional connection table values from said connection table when more than one connection has been stored by reference to said index; and said connection table comprises a set of first connection address data, each first connection address data is stored at a hashed index location and includes a pointer that is either null, indicating the first connection address data is the only connection address saved at its corresponding hashed index location, or pointing to a next connection address data indicating a next connection address saved at a same hashed index.