Patent ID: 7406554

Claim:
A method of managing an arbitration queue having a plurality of queue entries comprising: introducing entries into the queue at a first, highest order queue location; determining if lower order queue locations are available; if lower order queue locations are available, moving all higher order queue location contents to an adjacent lower order queue location per cycle until all lower order locations are filled; evaluating each entry with respect to a cache to determine whether a hit, miss, or victim cache state is applied to each entry; storing an appropriate cache state in each entry; associating each entry after placement in the queue to one of a plurality of groups, each of the plurality of groups having a different transaction parameter criteria; determining which particular one of the plurality of groups to service based on the transaction parameter criteria; servicing a particular entry in the particular one of the plurality of groups based on servicing criteria and its associated cache state; and moving all higher order queue entries, with respect to the particular entry being serviced, to an adjacent lower order location in the queue.