Packet classification using extended TCAMs

CAMs are the most popular practical method for implementing packet classification in high performance routers. Their principal drawbacks are high power consumption and inefficient representation of filters with port ranges. A recent paper Narlikar, et al., 2003 showed how partitioned TCAMs could be used to implement IP route lookup with dramatically lower power consumption. We extend the ideas in Narlikar, et al., 2003 to address the more challenging problem of general packet classification. We describe two extensions to the standard TCAM architecture. The first organizes the TCAM as a two level hierarchy in which an index block is used to enable/disable the querying of the main storage blocks. The second incorporates circuits for range comparisons directly within the TCAM memory array. Extended TCAMs can deliver high performance (100 million lookups per second) for large filter sets (100,000 filters), while reducing power consumption by a factor of ten and improving space efficiency by a factor of three.