According to one embodiment of the invention, a network device for processing data on a data network, includes a plurality of ports, where at least one higher speed port of the plurality of ports is configured to send and receive data between inter-networked devices, a memory management unit, in communication with and controlling memory external to the network device, configured store data on and retrieve data from the memory and a parser, in communication with the plurality of ports and the memory management unit, configured to parse the data received from the data network. The parser includes at least two independent parser units, with one of the independent parser units parsing data received by the at least one higher speed port and another of the independent parser units parsing data received by a remainder of the plurality of ports.