Patent ID: 8325716

Claim:
A network device configured to prevent data misalignment of a data packet containing extra header bytes, the network device comprising: at least one computer processor configured to execute instructions stored using at least one computer memory, the network device including: an ingress module having an input interface to receive a data packet comprising a plurality of cells, wherein a header cell of the data packet is one of the plurality of cells of the data packet, wherein the header cell of the plurality of cells comprises a header and packet data information and wherein the header cell includes the header in its entirety for the data packet; a header detector configured to detect the header cell of the data packet and remove the header from the header cell of the data packet; a counter configured to determine whether the header cell of the data packet contains a multiple of a predetermined number of bytes after the header has been removed from the header cell; an insertion module configured to insert null bytes into the header cell of the data packet to form a modified header cell of the data packet if the counter determines that the header cell of the data packet does not satisfy the multiple of the predetermined number of bytes in order to align all of a plurality of other cells of the packet; and an extraction module configured to remove the null bytes from the modified header cell of the data packet as a modified cell of the data packet exits the network device.