Abstract: In accordance with principles of the invention there is disclosed a new system for accessing a page table structure of a non-current process. The new system modifies a current page table structure such that a process private portion of a current page table structure is replaced with a process private portion of the page table structure of the non-current process. After the necessary accesses have been performed, the present system again modifies the page table structure so that the process private portion of the current page table structure is restored to the process private portion of the page table structure of the current process. The new system does not require a complete context switch, and the target PTEs are advantageously mapped to the virtual memory locations in which they would normally reside if the target process was current.

Abstract: A content addressable memory comprising a random access memory (RAM) including a plurality of data storage locations. Each of the data storage locations has a unique address. The content addressable memory operates to store a data entry comprising predetermined match information for at least a portion of a data entity. Each at least a portion of a data entity comprises the unique address of the respective data storage location. The RAM has an address port for input of at least a portion of a data entry as an address and an output for outputting the stored data entries. The RAM operates to fetch the data entry stored at the input address and to output the stored match information corresponding to the at least a portion of a data entity, in response to input of the at least a portion of a data entity as an address to the RAM. In a particular embodiment the RAM comprises an array of n RAMs, wherein the at least a portion of a data entity is segmented into n slices.