Patent ID: 8259738

Claim:
In a channel service manager (CSM), a method for prioritizing network processor information flow, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of information streams on a plurality of input channels; selectively linking input channels to CSM channels as follows: creating a fixed linkage between a first group of input channels and a first arbiter from a group of arbiters, and between a second group of input channels and a second arbiter from the group of arbiters, where the first arbiter uses a first selection mechanism to choose between information streams in the first group of input channels and the second arbiter uses a second selection mechanism to choose between information streams in the second group of input channels; scheduling information streams selected by the first and second arbiters in response to the ranking of the arbiter inside the group; and, selecting a CSM channel for information stream scheduled by an arbiter; storing the information streams in CSM ingress first-in first-out (FIFO) lanes, where at least one CSM ingress FIFO lane has a reserved and dynamic buffer memory allocation sufficient to minimize data underflow and dropped in-flight data traffic: mapping complete packets from the stored information streams in buffer memory to at least one processor queue in a group of processor queues; and, supplying complete packets from the group of processor queues to a network processor in an order responsive to a ranking of the processor queues inside the group.