Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't develop an ASIC to run a router with, you buy one off the shelf. And the function of a router doesn't exactly change day by day (or even year by year).
Change keeps coming, even when the wire format of a protocol has ossified. I've spent years in security and router performance at Cisco, wrote a respectable fraction of the flagship's L3 and L2-L3 (tun) firewall. I merged a patch on this tried-and-true firewall just this year; it's now deployed. As vendors are eager to remind us, custom silicon to accelerate everything between L1 to L7 exists. That said, it is still…
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