Patent ID: 8743907

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a packet forwarding pipeline, including: a receive port unit to receive data units via a first network link; a packet reassembly unit to determine if received data units are fragments of a larger data unit and to reassemble the larger data unit after receiving all of the fragments of the larger data unit a forwarding engine to determine transmit ports for transmitting data units, wherein the forwarding engine is configured (i) to determine one or more transmit ports for the larger data unit based on a first received fragment of the larger data unit and prior to the packet forwarding pipeline receiving all of the fragments of the larger data unit, and (ii) to skip processing fragments of the larger data unit received subsequent to receiving the first received fragment of the larger data unit; wherein the packet reassembly unit is in series with the forwarding engine in the packet forwarding pipeline and located downstream from the forwarding engine in the packet forwarding pipeline; and a transmit port unit to transmit the larger data unit via a transmit port determined by the forwarding engine and via a second network link coupled to the transmit port.