Network Processors: Origin of Species
Niraj Shah, Kurt Keutzer · 2022
Numerous programmable alternatives to network processing have emerged in the past few years to meet the current and future needs of network equipment. They all promise various trade-offs between performance and flexibility. In this paper we attempt to understand these new network processing alternatives. We present five major aspects of network processor architectures: approaches to parallel processing, elements of special-purpose hardware, structure of memory architectures, types of on-chip communication mechanisms, and use of peripherals. For each of these aspects, we include examples of specific network processor features.