Patent ID: 7131125

Claim:
A method for sharing at least one computer resource between a plurality of instruction threads of a multi-threaded process, the method comprising: providing a processor including a plurality of analysis machines and a plurality of computer resources, wherein each of said plurality of analysis machines includes an internal pipeline and is communicably coupled to a plurality of shared pipelines, wherein each said internal pipeline is an integer pipeline that staffs the execution of every instruction that executes in said analysis machine in which it is included, wherein each said analysis machine includes pre-classification hardware, wherein said pre-classification hardware classifies a plurality of packet types while data is transferred by an instruction thread of said analysis machine into a packet header memory of said analysis machine for subsequent microcode access; executing each instruction thread in one of the plurality of analysis machines; and sharing services of at least one of the plurality of computer resources between at least two of the plurality of analysis machines during the execution of each instruction thread.