DUE TO FAST INCREASE IN LINE SPEEDS AND NUMBER OF NETWORKS, BACKBONE ROUTERS NEED FAST AND SCALABLE IP LOOKUP SCHEMES. HARDWARE SOLUTIONS ARE FAST BUT, GENERALLY, LESS SCALABLE THAN SOFTWARE-BASED SOLUTIONS. IN THIS PAPER, WE PRESENT GENERIC HARDWARE UNITS TO ACCELERATE THE IP LOOKUP IN SOFTWARE. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS SHOW THAT USING DMP-TREE DATA STRUCTURE FOR IP LOOKUP, MORE THAN 30% IMPROVEMENT CAN BE OBTAINED BY ADDING SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE RUNNING PROCESSOR WITHOUT ANY SPECIAL CUSTOMIZATION. OUR HARDWARE UNITS EMBEDDED IN SOFTWARE-DRIVEN ENVIRONMENT (I.E A GENERIC PROCESSOR) CAN ACCELERATE OTHER PACKET PROCESSING OPERATIONS SUCH AS PARSING, QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS), FILTERING AND CLASSIFICATION.