SORTING DEVICE AND METHOD

This application relates to a sorting apparatus and method. The sorting apparatus includes a hardware sorting unit and a processor. The hardware sorting unit is configured to determine slice granularities of a plurality of to-be-sorted elements, and determine an end value of each of some or all M slices obtained based on the slice granularities. The processor is configured to determine K elements in the plurality of elements based on the end value of each of the some or all slices, where the K elements are elements whose values are maximum or minimum in the plurality of elements. The hardware sorting unit shares some tasks of the processor, and the processor does not need to participate in an entire sorting process. Therefore, compared with a manner in which the processor independently performs sorting, efficiency is higher.