NETWORK PROCESSOR FOR MANAGING A PACKET PROCESSING ACCELERATION LOGIC CIRCUITRY IN A NETWORKING DEVICE

摘要

The invention relates to a network processor for managing communication between a central processing unit running tasks on one or more partitions, and a PPA logic circuitry. Management portals pass messages to and from the central processing unit. A management portal communicates with one of the partitions. A resource state manager is arranged to manage resources of the PPA logic circuitry and to communicate states of the resources to the tasks via the management portals. A controller driver drives the PPA logic circuitry using information received from the resource state manager and the instructions from a data interface. The networking device does not need a separate master partition, and is allowing a programmer to deploy the system fast and with minimal risk or effort on different integrated systems.