Operation of a dual instruction pipe virus co-processor

Abstract

Circuits and methods are provided for detecting, identifying and/or removing undesired content. According to one embodiment, a content object that is to be virus processed is stored by a general purpose processor to a system memory. Virus scan parameters for the content object are set up by the general purpose processor. Instructions from a virus signature memory of a virus co-processor are read by the virus co-processor based on the virus scan parameters. The instructions contain op-codes of a first instruction type and op-codes of a second instruction type. Those of the instructions containing op-codes of the first instruction type are assigned to a first instruction pipe of multiple instruction pipes of the virus co-processor for execution. An instruction of the assigned instructions containing op-codes of the first instruction type is executed by the first instruction pipe including accessing a portion of the content object from the system memory.