Patent ID: 7953721

Claim:
A method of operating a search engine device, comprising: reading a next key from the search engine device by: searching a pipelined database within the search engine device with a first key to identify at least one key therein that is greater than the first key; executing a next key fetch operation in the pipelined database to identify the next key from the at least one key; and then retrieving the next key and a handle associated with the next key from the search engine device, wherein the pipelined database comprises multiple levels of hierarchical processing logic, wherein each level of the multiple levels of hierarchical processing logic include (a) control and search logic, (b) storage for data structures for a level of a b-tree associated therewith, and (c) a node maintenance sub-engine, and wherein searching a pipelined database within the search engine device comprises replacing an idle cycle detected at a highest level of the pipelined database with a next key search operation.