High performance communication controller for processing high speed data streams wherein execution of a task can be skipped if it involves fetching information from external memory bank

The present invention relates generally to communication controllers, and more particularly to high performance communication controllers. A communication controller for handling high speed multi protocol data streams, wherein a stream is comprised of frames. Communication controller has two processors, second processor initializes first processor and handles high level management and protocol functions, first processor handles the data stream transactions. First processor and second processors are coupled to a two external buses. First processor handles a transactions of a frame by executing a task. First processor performs a task switch when there is a need to fetch information from an external unit, coupled to either first or second external bus, if it did process a whole frame, or if there is a need to fetch a portion of a frame from a communication channel.