Apparatus and method for routing data packets through a communications network

This invention relates generally to data communications systems, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for routing data packets through a communications system. A method and apparatus for determining the next router that a data packet is transmitted to on its way to a destination host by traversing a routing table using a hardware search engine and a unique search tree. The step of traversing each node in the search tree takes only one memory cycle, decreasing in half the time it takes to search a routing table and thus forward data packets on a system of computer networks. This is accomplished by storing the decision bit for each node in its parent node rather than in the node itself The apparatus may use a hardware search engine to search the routing table.