Patent ID: 7620042

Claim:
A router for transferring data packets between external devices coupled to said router, said router comprising: a switch fabric; and R routing nodes coupled to said switch fabric, each of said R routing nodes capable of exchanging data packets with said external devices and with other ones of said R routing nodes via said switch fabric, wherein a first of said R routing nodes comprises: an inbound network processor comprising a first plurality of microengines capable of forwarding incoming data packets from external ports to said switch fabric; an outbound network processor comprising a second plurality of microengines capable of forwarding outgoing data packets from said switch fabric to said external ports; and a plurality of registers for transferring messages between said first plurality of microengines and said second plurality of microengines, said plurality of registers comprising a first plurality of input registers capable of transferring a received message from any one of said second plurality of microengines to a dedicated one of said first plurality of microengines, wherein each of said first plurality of input registers comprises a full flag that is set when said any one of said second plurality of microengines writes said received message in said each of said first plurality of input registers.