Patent ID: 7149829
Filing Date: 2006-12-12
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An apparatus, comprising: an arbitration controller having a plurality of inputs that receive one or more transactions from a plurality of blocks of functionality, wherein the arbitration controller to arbitrate requests for access to a shared resource amongst the plurality of blocks of functionality by implementing an arbitration policy, wherein the arbitration policy to group the transactions from the plurality of blocks of functionality into global groups of transactions for servicing by that shared resource, wherein all of the transactions in a first global group are serviced by that shared resource prior to servicing transactions in a next global group of transactions; and arbitration logic to facilitate the arbitration policy, wherein the arbitration logic comprises cascaded arbitration units that hierarchically arbitrate for the shared resource, and the topology of the functional blocks supplying the transactions to the inputs into the arbitration controller is capable of varying independently of the arbitration policy achieved by the collection of arbitration units.