Patent ID: 8385343

Claim:
An IP address lookup apparatus including a processor and memory, and, memory, the IP address lookup apparatus comprising: a bit extractor, having IP addresses inputted and stored therein, for extracting bits from the stored IP address depending on an access length directed by a control signal upon each receipt of the control signal; a hashing section for hashing the extracted bits to generate multiple hashing indices; a universal Bloom filter lookup section for searching in a universal Bloom filter to look for a bit-vector value indexed by each of the multiple hashing indices; a universal multi-hashing table lookup section, depending on the search result of the universal Bloom filter lookup section, to search for node information indexed by each of the multiple hashing indices in a universal multi-hashing table; a best matching prefix updater for updating a best matching prefix based on an existing node information when there exists a searched node information that matches the extracted bit; an output generator for generating an updated best matching prefix as an output value when an access level corresponding to an access length is the last one of multiple levels; and an access level controller for selecting one of the multiple levels as an access level and outputting the control signal directing an access length corresponding to the selected access level to the bit extractor based on the search result from the universal Bloom filter lookup section or the universal multi-hashing table lookup section and in a predefined sequence of the levels, when the access level is not the last level.