Patent ID: 7106734

Claim:
A network device for network communications, said network device comprising: data port interface, said data port interface supporting a plurality of data ports transmitting and receiving data at a data rate; a CPU interface, said CPU interface configured to communicate with a CPU; a memory, said memory communicating with said port interface; a memory management unit, said memory management unit including a memory interface for communicating data from said data port interface and said memory; a communication channel, said communication channel for communicating data and messaging information between said data port interface, said memory, and said memory management unit; protocol determiner for determining whether an incoming packet is an IP packer or an IPX packet; an IP router table for looking up addresses of IP packets; an IPX router table for looking up IPX addresses of IPX packets; and an L 3 table containing a plurality of L 3 addresses, wherein, after a determination by the protocol determiner whether the packet is an is an IP or an IPX packet, an appropriate lookup is performed on the L 3 table and one of the IP router table and the IPX router table, wherein a match is determined based upon a longest prefix match of the packet with an entry in the table.