What is the function of packet memory?

[saidfrh]

Cisco routers generally uses two types of

memory, Flash and DRAM. "cisco 2500 (68030) processor (revision A) with 4096K/2048K bytes of memory". The first memory number is the DRAM and

the second is the packet memory. What function does packet memory serve?

Thanks.

[hando]

Packet memory is used to store incoming and outgoing packets. And it is also called shared memory in Cisco 2500.