US 7,350,020 B2
Generating and merging lookup results to apply multiple features
Bhushan Mangesh Kanekar, San Jose, Calif. (US); Venkateshwar Rao Pullela, San Jose, Calif. (US); Dileep Kumar Devireddy, San Jose, Calif. (US); Gyaneshwar S. Saharia, Cupertino, Calif. (US); Dipankar Bhattacharya, Saratoga, Calif. (US); and Qizhong Chen, Palo Alto, Calif. (US)
Assigned to Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, Calif. (US)
Filed on Aug. 01, 2006, as Appl. No. 11/497,171.
Application 11/497171 is a continuation of application No. 10/630174, filed on Jul. 29, 2003, granted, now 7,177,978.
Application 10/630174 is a continuation in part of application No. 10/215719, filed on Aug. 10, 2002, granted, now 7,103,708.
Prior Publication US 2007/0002862 A1, Jan. 04, 2007
Int. Cl. G06F 12/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 711—108  [370/392] 26 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus configured to substantially simultaneously perform multiple lookup operations on associative memory entries and then on their corresponding adjunct memory entries in identifying a merged lookup result, the apparatus comprising:
a first plurality of associative memory entries and corresponding adjunct memory values programmed to implement a first set of access list control entries corresponding to a first feature of a plurality of access control list entries; and a second plurality of associative memory entries and corresponding adjunct memory values programmed to implement a second set of access list control entries corresponding to a second feature of the plurality of access control list entries; wherein said apparatus is configured to substantially simultaneously perform lookup operations based on a lookup value in the first plurality of associative memory entries and in the second plurality of associative memory entries in order to generate a plurality of associative memory lookup results which are used to retrieve corresponding results from said corresponding adjunct memory values; and
a combiner configured to receive and merge said corresponding results generated substantially simultaneously in order to identify the merged lookup result.