1. A packet parsing processor, comprising: a parsing engine having an input to receive a signal that represents a network packet, the parsing engine to perform instruction-driven packet parsing on the packet, responsive to parsing instructions; and a state-graph unit having an input/output coupled to a second input/output of the parsing engine, the state-graph unit to store the parsing instructions, wherein a parsing instruction is associated with a node in a state-graph, the parsing engine executing the parsing instruction responsive to a node match; wherein the parsing engine further comprises a hash unit to store a portion of a parsing state, and wherein the parsing engine generates a key to look-up the portion of the parsing state.