Patent ID: 9507737
Filing Date: 2016-11-29
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. Arbitration circuitry for arbitrating between N inputs each having an associated priority value to select an output, where N is an integer value of two or more, said arbitration circuitry comprising: tie-break value generating circuitry configured to generate an M-bit tie-break value, where M is a lowest integer value satisfying a condition M≧log priority value modifying circuitry configured to extend respective priority values of two or more inputs by appending respective one or more tie-break bits as one or more least significant bits to said priority values to form two or more extended priority values, said one or more tie-break bits forming said one or more least significant bits of at least one of said extended priority values being dependent upon said tie-break value; and comparator circuitry configured to compare said extended priority values of said two or more inputs to select whichever of said two or more inputs has a highest priority such that, if respective priority values within extended priority values of any pair of inputs are the same, then a selection between said pair is made in dependence upon said respective one or more tie-break bits within said extended priority values, the comparator circuitry including a plurality of comparator circuits connected in accordance a binary tree having a root node and M levels, each comparator circuit corresponding to a node within said binary tree and configured to select one of two inputs in accordance with an arbitration operation such that said root node generates an arbitration result identifying said output, wherein each said comparator circuit within a level of said binary tree is configured to compare respective extended priority values of a pair of said inputs to select whichever of said pair has a higher priority, and wherein said one or more tie-break bits include an Xth bit of said M-bit tie-break value and the value of X is constant within each level of said binary tree and differs between each level of said binary tree.