The Network Service Engine (NSE-1) delivers wire rate OC3 throughput while running concurrent high-touch WAN edge services. The underlying design leverages NPE-300 technology enhanced by a process intensive microcode engine called Parallel Express Forwarding (PXF) engine. This unique dual processing architecture offers a tremendous performance increase for process-hungry, intelligent network services. By offloading complex Layer 4 through Layer 7 high-touch services to the PXF processor, the Route/Switch Processor can sustain wire rate performance.