The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 18, 2006
Filed:
Aug. 30, 2001
Werner Van Hoof, Veradale, WA (US);
Jerrold Wheeler, Spokane, WA (US);
Mathieu Tallegas, Veradale, WA (US);
Werner Van Hoof, Veradale, WA (US);
Jerrold Wheeler, Spokane, WA (US);
Mathieu Tallegas, Veradale, WA (US);
Alcatel Internetworking, (PE), Inc., Spokane, WA (US);
Abstract
A packet processor whose processing capabilities are optimized by concurrently processing multiple packets within various pipelined stages. At each stage, multiple packets are processed via an internally pipelined sub-processor. In one embodiment, the packets are processed in a round robin fashion. When a particular packet is done processing at a particular stage, it may pass another packet whose processing is not complete, and move to a next stage. In another embodiment, a packet is processed until a conditional branch instruction or any other instruction causing a potential stall is encountered. If such an instruction is encountered, a next available packet is selected and processed instead of wasting processing cycles during the stall, or proceeding with the processing of the current packet based on a predicted result. The sub-processor resumes processing of the packet once the stall is over.