Patent ID: 7079533

Claim:
A system for determining forwarding information for a data frame received by a network device, comprising: a plurality of input ports configured to receive a plurality of data frames; queuing logic configured to transfer at least some of the received data frames to an external memory; a forwarding engine configured to generate forwarding information for at least some of the received data frames transferred by the queuing logic to the external memory; and a port filter configured to store forwarding information for one or more of the received data frames, analyze each of the received data frames to determine whether there is stored forwarding information relating to the received data frame, and, when there is stored forwarding information relating to the received data frame, using the stored forwarding information to forward the received data frame, wherein the port filter is further configured to mask the transferal of the received data frame by the queuing logic to the external memory causing the forwarding engine to ignore the transferal of the received data frame.