Static dictionary-based compression hardware pipeline for data compression accelerator of a data processing unit

Abstract

A highly programmable device, referred to generally as a data processing unit, having multiple processing units for processing streams of information, such as network packets or storage packets, is described. The data processing unit includes one or more specialized hardware accelerators configured to perform acceleration for various data processing functions. This disclosure describes a programmable hardware-based data compression accelerator that includes a pipeline for performing static dictionary-based and dynamic history-based compression on streams of information, such as network packets. The search block may support single and multi-thread processing, and multiple levels of compression effort. To achieve high-compression, the search block may operate at a high level of effort that supports a single thread and use of both a dynamic history of the input data stream and a static dictionary of common words. The static dictionary may be useful in achieving high-compression where the input data stream is relatively small.