Patent ID: 7219184

Claim:
A prefix search key apparatus for storing a prefix key of a preassigned length comprising: a plurality of memory banks, the number of memory banks determined by at least the number of ordinates within an n-dimension representation, the n-dimension representation defining a coordinate system, each bank associated with one of the ordinates within the n-dimension representation, each bank having at least a number of memory locations equal to the largest valid value for its associated ordinate, each ordinate representing a memory location within the associated memory bank; a format module for masking out one or more bits from an incoming key, the number of bits to be masked determined by the first prefix key length assigned to the prefix search key apparatus; and a conversion module for converting the masked key into an n-dimension representation having a plurality of ordinates, the conversion module storing the masked key into one memory location as referenced by one of the plurality of ordinates.