Patent ID: 7773590

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a plurality of interfaces including a first interface and a second interface; a content-addressable memory including a plurality of content-addressable memory entries, said content-addressable memory entries including: a plurality of interface independent entries; a plurality of first interface dependent entries corresponding to the first interface; and a plurality of second interface dependent entries corresponding to the second interface; a plurality of memory entries corresponding to the plurality of interface independent entries, the plurality of memory entries configured to produce an interface independent result corresponding to a result of a lookup operation on the plurality of interface independent entries; and a lookup mechanism configured to initiate a lookup operation on said interface independent entries with a lookup word based on a first packet corresponding to the first interface so as to produce the interface independent result, and configured to initiate a second lookup operation on said first interface dependent entries with a second lookup word to generate a second result, the second lookup word including the interface independent result.