Efficient demultiplexing of incoming TCP packets
Paul E. McKenney, Ken F. Dove · 1992
When a transport protocol segment arrives at a receiving system, the receiving system must determine which application is to receive the protocol segment. This decision is typically made by looking up a protocol control block (PCB) for the segment, based on information in the segment's header. PCB lookup (a form of demultiplexing) is typically one of the more expensive operations in handling inbound protocol segment [Fe190].