Patent ID: 7933282

Claim:
A packet classification device for storing a number of groups of rules associated with one or more access control lists (ACLs), wherein each rule includes a plurality of packet header fields and an action field, the packet classification device comprising: a first content addressable memory (CAM) block configured to store only unique entries for each packet header field; a first random access memory (RAM) block coupled to the first CAM block and configured to store field labels for the unique packet header field entries stored in the first CAM block, wherein each field label indicates which groups of rules contain the corresponding unique field entry; a second CAM block configured to store a plurality of group labels, wherein each group label consists of a unique combination of concatenated field labels; and a second RAM block coupled to the second CAM block and configured to store a group identification (ID) for each group label, wherein each group ID identifies a corresponding one of the groups of rules associated with one or more of the ACLs and stored in the device, wherein each rule includes the packet header fields and the action field.