Patent ID: 7822024

Claim:
A router for interconnecting external devices coupled to said router, said router comprising: a switch fabric; and a plurality of routing nodes coupled to said switch fabric, wherein each of said plurality of routing nodes comprises: a first network processor comprising a first plurality of microengines, each of said first plurality of microengines for performing first security and classification functions associated with data packets received from said external devices and transmitted to said switch fabric, wherein each data packet is distributed to a selected microengine; a second network processor comprising a second plurality of microengines, each of said second plurality of microengines for performing second security and classification functions associated with data packets received from said switch fabric and transmitted to said external devices, wherein each data packet is distributed to a selected microengine; and a routing table search circuit comprising an initial content addressable memory stage followed by a plurality of trie tree search table stages, wherein one of said first and second security and classification functions is performed according to information from the routing table search circuit, wherein the routing table search circuit is configured to: build a content addressable memory search key prior to the initial content addressable memory stage, wherein the content addressable memory search key is built from a portion of a destination address and a class of service (CoS) value; and form an index from a result of the initial content addressable memory stage prior to the plurality of trie tree search table stages, wherein the index points to a start of a trie tree search table.