Patent ID: 7787479

Claim:
A vehicle gateway apparatus that controls a forwarding process of frame data between multiple communication channels, said vehicle gateway apparatus comprising: a plurality of storage portions, having transmission storage portions and reception storage portions, provided for each of the multiple communication channels; a routing unit that retrieves frame data from a reception storage region in one of the reception storage portions and that divides the frame data into frame data to be sent to a controller and the frame data to be sent to a hardware search engine according to the reception storage region from which the frame data is retrieved, the frame data being divided according to an identification number respectively recorded in the frame data and being respectively stored in the reception storage region in one of the reception storage portions; the controller, controlled by software programs, that executes a routing process that receives the frame data sent from the routing unit and transmits the frame data to a transmission storage region in one of the transmission storage portions prepared for a communication channel being used by an entry to which the frame data is sent; a first routing map storing portion that stores a plurality of routing maps used by the hardware search engine; the hardware search engine, that executes a routing process using a routing map that receives the frame data sent from the routing unit and transmits the frame data to a transmission storage region in one of the transmission storage portions prepared for a communication channel being used by an entry to which the frame data is sent, regardless to the routing process by the controller; a first arbitration unit provided for each of the multiple communication channels that inputs frame data transmitted from the controller and frame data transmitted from the hardware search engine, and arbitrates which of the frame data to be stored in each transmission storage portion; and a state management portion that retrieves according to a state of the vehicle, a routing map prepared for an initialization time from the first routing map storing portion in the initialization time when an engine of the vehicle is started, and transmits the routing map to the hardware search engine to have the hardware search engine execute a routing using the routing map prepared for the initialization time, and when the state of the vehicle is changed and receives the controller's add request to increase a number of the multiple communication channels or a number of entries which transmit and receive the frame data by using the communication channels, retrieves a routing map prepared for the time of adding the number of the communication channels or the number of the entries from the first routing map storing portion, and transmits the routing map to have the hardware search engine execute a routing using the routing map prepared for the time of adding the number of the communication channels or the number of entries.