We present an innovative protocol processor component that combines wire-speed processing for low-level, and best effort processing for higher-level protocols. The component is a System-on-Chip that integrates variable size packet buffering, specialised cores for header and field processing, generic RISC cores and scheduling blocks. We focus on the main innovation, the reprogrammable pipeline module, and discuss its internal architecture, optimised to perform field processing on byte streams, as well as protocol processing on complex data structures. Furthermore, we present how modern and new tools were used in system dimensioning, design, and verification phases. The chip is able to handle up to 512K flows organised in individual queues. It embeds 5 custom cores optimised for field processing, 3 typical RISC cores for packet processing and 11 generic and application specific hardware blocks. It's been prototyped in UMC 0.18/spl mu/m CMOS technology in a 1096-pin BGA package and operates at 200MHz for 2.5Gbps links.