Patent ID: 7636355

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a central processing unit configured to perform routing operations on the basis of a communication protocol stack, and at least two devices configured to handle signal processing related issues, wherein the communication protocol stack is divided into a first stack and a second stack, the first stack being situated in the central processing unit, wherein the central processing unit is configured to perform the routing operations of protocols in the first stack, and wherein the at least two devices are configured to perform the operations of protocols in the second stack, and wherein the central processing unit comprises a routing table comprising routing information configured to allow routing datagrams between the central processing unit and the at least one two devices, wherein each datagram comprising an identification code of one of the devices inside an internet protocol address field of the datagram, wherein the routing operations of protocols in the first stack comprise determining a respective one of the at least two devices to which each datagram is to be sent based on the identification code of the datagram and the routing information, wherein the communication protocol stack comprises an internet protocol stack, and wherein the first stack comprises interface protocols configured to map between internet protocol datagrams and network specific frames, and the second stack comprises internet protocol and at least one of user datagram protocol, transmission control protocol, application protocols and time transport protocol.