Patent ID: 9690482
Date: 2017-06-27
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A data storage apparatus comprising: multiple banks for storing data, wherein each bank of the multiple banks comprises multiple storage locations, each storage location for storing a data item, wherein the multiple banks form multiple bank groups, each bank group comprising more than one bank; an input for receiving a data block for storage, wherein the data block comprises multiple data items; storage circuitry for storing a first data item of the data block at a selected storage location in a selected bank and for storing a subsequent data item of the data block to a further storage location in a different bank according to a sequence of banks; and arbitration circuitry for selecting between multiple accesses, wherein the arbitration circuitry comprises an arbitrator for each bank group and each arbitrator is capable of arbitration independently of the other arbitrators, wherein the sequence of banks firstly comprises the selected bank followed by all other banks in the bank group of the selected bank, and wherein the sequence of banks respects a hierarchical pattern, wherein a finer granularity of the hierarchical pattern comprises all banks in a given bank group, and a coarser granularity of the hierarchical pattern comprises the given bank group followed by a different bank group to the given bank group; and wherein each arbitrator comprises a bank group filter, each bank group filter to suppress a read access to that arbitrator's bank group for a memory address used in a previous read access.