Juniper Networks, Inc.

Viswesh Ananthakrishnan

Pankaj Patel

Dennis C Ferguson

Philippe Lacroute

Gerald Cheung

Tatao Chuang

Chi-Chung Kenny Chen

Ordering logic ensures that data items being processed by a number of parallel processing units are unloaded from the processing units in the original per-flow order that the data items were loaded into the parallel processing units. The ordering logic includes a pointer memory, a tail vector, and a head vector. Through these three elements, the ordering logic keeps track of a number of 'virtual queues' corresponding to the data flows. A round robin arbiter unloads data items from the processing units only when a data item is at the head of its virtual queue.

Maintaining packet order using hash-based linked-list queues

A key engine that performs route lookups for a plurality of keys may include a data processing portion configured to process one data item at a time and to request data when needed. A buffer may be configured to store a partial result from the data processing portion. A controller may be configured to load the partial result from the data processing portion into the buffer. The controller also may be configured to input another data item into the data processing portion for processing while requested data is obtained for a prior data item. A number of these key engines may be used by a routing unit to perform a large number of route lookups at the same time.

Context switched route lookup key engine

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Viswesh Ananthakrishnan