Marvell International Limited

Marvellworld Trade Ltd.

Xelerated Ab

Par Westlund

Gunnar Nordmark

Kurt Thomas Boden

Jakob Carlström

Joachim Roos

Lars-Olof B Svensson

Thomas Stromqvist

Ronny Nilsson

Thomas Boden

Hakan Zeffer

Lars-Olov Svensson

Lars-Olaf Svensson

Johan Back

The disclosed embodiments relate to a system that provides an intelligent port infrastructure for communication network devices. This is accomplished by incorporating a highly configurable pre-classifier module into the port infrastructure. This pre-classifier makes it possible to realign packet data to add a configurable number of bytes to the front of the packet, and also to select interesting data from incoming packets for further analysis. The selected data is sent into a configurable classification engine, which generates instructions that specify how to determine associated packet attributes. The packet attributes are then generated based on the instructions, and are forwarded along with the packet to downstream processing units.

Method and apparatus for pre-classifying packets

A system including a receiver and a processing pipeline. The receiver is configured to generate a data block by encapsulating a data packet in a header portion and a tail portion that do not include valid information bits. The processing pipeline is configured to, in a first processing stage, store the data block, and store, separately from the data block, additional information associated with the data block. The processing pipeline is further configured to, without modifying a length of the data block, either add bits to the header portion or the tail portion to increase the length of the data packet or subtract bits from the data packet to decrease the length of the data packet, and modify the additional information in accordance with the bits added to the header portion or the tail portion or the bits subtracted from the data packet.

System and method for modifying, in a processing pipeline, a length of a data packet in a data block without modifying a length of the data block

Systems and methods are provided for counting a number of received packets and a number of bytes contained in the received packets. A system includes a first memory disposed in an integrated circuit, the first memory being configured as a first combination counter having a first set of bits for storing a subtotal of received packets, and a second set of bits for storing a subtotal of bytes contained in the received packets. A second memory is external to the integrated circuit. The second memory is configured to store a total number of received packets and a total number of bytes contained in the received packets. Update circuitry is configured to update the total number of packets stored in the second whenever either of the first set of bits or the second set of bits overflows in the first memory.

Method and apparatus for internal/external memory packet and byte counting

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for pipelined processing of data. When a data packet containing information is received by a processor operating according to pipelined processing, bits are added to the data packet and an intermediate packet, comprising more bits than the received data packet, is generated. To the intermediate packet is associated information reference, the information reference comprising information regarding the length and position of the information in the intermediate packet. As the intermediate packet is processed, changes to the intermediate packet resulting in changes of the length or the position of the information in the intermediate packet will trigger changes of the information reference. When the intermediate packet exits the processor, superfluous bits are removed.

Method and apparatus for processing data in a pipeline, in which processing the length of information contained in the data packet and/or the position of the information in the data packet is altered

Method in a pipeline processing stage in a processor, includes the steps of: receiving a first block from a first register and a first execution parameter associated with the first block from a second register, the execution parameter having a first value; inspecting a set of data being at least a part of the first block; and, if the set of data differs from a predetermined condition, storing a second execution parameter on a third register and a third execution parameter on the second register, where the second execution parameter has a second value and is associated with the first block and the third execution parameter has the first value and will be associated with a second block. The invention also relates to the pipeline processor, a module, an integrated circuit and a computer unit.

Method and apparatus for processing blocks in a pipeline

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Stockholm, Sweden

Par Westlund