Broadcom Corporation

Brandon Carl Smith

Jun Cao

Eric Ng

John Jeffrey Dull

Vamsi M Tatapudi

A hash table supports extended entries. The extended entries permit a base entry to extend its associated data into one or more neighboring entries. Extended entries thereby provide a mechanism through which a hash table entry may store additional data compared to a base entry. Extended entries may coexist with base entries in the hash table. The hash table thereby provides the flexibility to adapt dynamically to meet system requirements and to balance the needs of additional data storage by blending the number of extended entries (that each store more data than a base entry) and the number of base entries (each storing less data than an extended entry).

Extended width entries for hash tables

Various example embodiments are disclosed. According to an example embodiment, an apparatus may include a plurality of search engine pipeline stages, each of the plurality of search engine pipeline stages being configured to submit a particular search request to a plurality of search engines. The apparatus may also include the plurality of search engines, each of said plurality of search engines being configured to provide search results to one or more of the plurality of search engine pipeline stages.

Pipeline architecture for a network device

Various example embodiments are disclosed. According to an example embodiment, a switch may comprise an instruction decode stage and a lookup stage. The instruction decode stage may be configured to receive a bulk instruction identifying an action to perform on frame entries of the lookup stage, and in response to receiving the bulk instruction, send, to the lookup stage, at least first and second frame entry instructions, each of the first and second frame entry instructions identifying the action and identifying a unique frame entry in the lookup stage upon which to perform the action. The lookup stage may be configured to receive the first and second frame entry instructions from the instruction decode stage, and in response to receiving each of the first and second frame entry instructions, perform the identified action on the frame entry identified by the respective frame entry instruction.

Performing actions on frame entries in response to receiving bulk instruction

A network device for processing data on a data network includes a port interface configured to receive a data packet from a data network and to send a processed data packet to an egress port of the plurality of ports, a packet evaluation module configured to parse the received data packet and modify the received data packet to form the processed data packet and a search engine configured to perform searches of lookup tables using parsed data packet values and to return search results to the packet evaluation module to assist in modifying the received data packet. At least one lookup table shares at least two different types of entries in that same at least one lookup table, where the search engine is configured to distinguish between the at least two different types of entries in that same at least one lookup table.

Dynamic table sharing of memory space within a network device

A network device for processing data on a data network includes a port interface, in communication with a plurality of ports, configured to receive data packets from a data network and to send processed data packets to the data network and a bookkeeping memory, in communication with the port interface. The port interface is configured to store values associated with a data packet when a head of the data packet is received by a port of the plurality of ports and utilize the stored values, if needed, when a tail of the data packet is received by the port.

Bookkeeping memory use in a search engine of a network device

A network device for processing data on a data network includes a plurality of ports, configured to receive data from a data network and to send processed data to the data network, a memory management unit configured store data on and retrieve data from the memory and a metering unit configured to police a flow of the processed data to be sent to the network device. The metering unit is configured to utilize a series of leaky bucket units, where tokens are added to each leaky bucket unit only when that particular leaky bucket unit is accessed. The metering unit is also configured to add the tokens based on a prior timestamp value, a current timing value and an established rate and a multiplication to establish the tokens is accomplished by shifting a register of the established rate.

Timestamp metering and rollover protection in a network device

A network device for processing data on a data network including a plurality of ports, configured to receive data from a data network and to send processed data to the data network via an egress port, a controller interface, configured to communicate with an external controller, a memory management unit, configured store data on and retrieve data from the memory and a metering unit, configured to police a flow of the processed data to be sent to the egress port. The metering unit further includes programmable registers, in communication with the controller interface, configured to be programmed through controller signals sent through the controller interface from the external controller, such at all aspects of the flow of the processed data may be controlled by the external controller.

Programmable metering behavior based on a table lookup

A method and apparatus for searching an electronically stored table of information including a plurality of table entries and facilitating high speed searching of a table to provide a longest matching entry. The table searching method uses at least one memory unit having a table of information including a plurality of data entries. The table of information has a plurality of search keys associated with the plurality of data entries and the plurality of search keys form a tree structure based on a prefix length for each of the search keys. The plurality of search keys are expanded such that each of the plurality of search keys has two lowest level search keys associated therewith that cover a lowest level of the tree structure. A binary search of the lowest level search keys is performed based on a search value to determine a longest prefix match. A data entry of the plurality of data entries is output based on said longest prefix match. The method is also applicable to routing data in an internet router where the routing of data packets depends on address information stored in the table of information.

Method and apparatus for performing a binary search on an expanded tree

A network device for processing data on a data network including a plurality of ports, configured to receive data packets and to send out processed data packets, a modification engine configured to parse, evaluate and modify the data packets to produce the processed data packets and a series of search engine pipeline stages configured to perform lookup searches through a plurality of search engines. The series of search engine pipeline stages perform search requests in sequential processing steps and any stage of the series of search engine pipeline stages may submit a particular search request to the plurality of search engines and receive search results particular to a particular data packet at a respective processing step.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Brandon Carl Smith