A table management method allowing efficient hash search with suppressing the
possibility
of occurrence of rehashing is disclosed. A MAC address table is divided into a
plurality of banks, which are simultaneously accessed according to a hash output.
Each of registered MAC addresses read out from respective ones of the banks is
compared to the input MAC address. When a match is indicated by at least one comparison
result, the input MAC address is judged to have been registered in the MAC address
table. When no match is indicated by all comparison results, the input MAC address
is judged as a new MAC address. If an available memory area is left in memory space
of the banks concurrently accessed according to the hash output, then the new MAC
address is registered in the available memory area.
