Patent ID: 6963567

Claim:
A multiport device comprising: a plurality of receive ports, the receive ports receiving frames in a packet-switched network, the frames each having a source field indicating the source of the frame and a destination field indicating an intended destination for the frame; a plurality of transmit ports, the transmit ports configured to transmit the frames in the packet-switched network; and an internal rules checking circuit coupled to the receive ports and configured to determine frame forwarding information that indicates which of the plurality of transmit ports the received frames should be transmitted from, the internal rules checking circuit including an address table including a plurality of addressable table entries for storing frame forwarding information, a first source address lookup component configured to access the address table at a table address based on at least the source field of the frames, a first destination address lookup component configured to access the address table at a table address based on at least the destination field of the frames to obtain the frame forwarding information of the frame, a second source address lookup component configured to access the address table at a table address based on at least the source field of the frames, a second destination address lookup component configured to access the address table at a table address based on at least the destination field of the frames to obtain the frame forwarding information of the frame, and a source address learning engine connected to the first and second source address lookup components and the address table, the source address learning engine, in response to a request from the first source address lookup component relating to a first frame, updating the address table to include information relating to the frame forwarding information for the first frame, and in response to a request from the second source address lookup component relating to a second frame, updating the address table to include information relating to the frame forwarding information for the second frame.