US Patent 11169932 Flow table aging optimized for dram access

A flow table management system can include a hardware memory module communicatively coupled to a network interface card. The hardware memory module is configured to store a flow table including a plurality of network flow entries. The network interface card further includes a flow table age cache configured to store a set of recently active network flows and a flow table management module configured to manage a duration for which respective network flow entries in the flow table stored in the hardware memory module remain in the flow table using the flow table age cache. In some implementations, age information about each respective flow in the flow table is stored in the hardware memory module in an age state table that is separate from the flow table.