RouterOS switch chip and hardware offloading

A switch chip forwards frames between ports without the CPU. RouterOS drives it through the bridge (routeros-bridging-switching: ports, VLAN filtering, STP) and through /interface/ethernet/switch for what a bridge cannot express: mirroring, rate limits, ACL, QoS and Layer 3 routing. Traffic that the chip handles never reaches RouterOS: no firewall, no queues, no sniffer, no torch, no bridge filter (counters only). A feature that needs the CPU switches the offload off for the traffic it touches.

Which chip, which features

1. /interface/ethernet/switch/print lists the chips with their TYPE, /interface/ethernet/print shows which port is on which chip, and references/guides/bridging-and-switching/switch-chip-features.md maps every model to its chip. Ports on a second chip or a management port wired to the CPU (for example ether9 of the CRS312-4C+8XG) cannot be bridged into the hardware path: leave them out.
2. What the chip offers depends on the family: