SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING DATA PACKETS

An apparatus and method for processing a data packet to determine the routing of the data packet through a communications network is provided in which the data packet has a header portion stored in I/O header registers (150) and a data portion stored in data buffer (50). The header portion of an incoming data packet is received, stored and processed. The processing may include using a processing core such as ALU (164) for executing instructions for processing the header portion, searching through a route table (162) to determine a route of the data packet, and searching through a table memory (124) for information about the destination of the data packet. The route table search, the table memory search and the processing core operate simultaneously to process the header portion and generate an internal header or a network media header. A modified header portion is then generated to route the data packet through the communications network.