Patent ID: 8843523

Claim:
A system comprising: a pattern-recognition processor comprising: one or more pattern matching matrices adapted to search a data stream generated externally from the pattern-recognition processor to determine if one or more values are present in the data stream and generate first results based at least in part on the search for the one or more values in the data stream, and one or more mask modules adapted to generate second results based at least in part on filtering the first results, wherein the one or more pattern matching matrices include a threshold-logic matrix configured to register an occurrence of a value in the data stream as a threshold result, and to output the threshold result as a subset of the first results to one register of a plurality of registers, wherein the one or more pattern matching matrices include a logical-product matrix configured to generate a product result based at least in part on two or more threshold-logic matrix results, and to output the product result as a subset of the first results to one register of the plurality of registers, wherein the one or more mask modules include a product output mask configured to: receive the product result from the logical-product matrix; filter the received product result; and output the filtered product result as a subset of the second results to an additional register of the plurality of registers; and a results buffer, wherein the results buffer includes a plurality of first-in-first-out (FIFO) locations adapted to store the second results generated by the pattern-recognition processor.