Patent ID: 8732370

Claim:
A method for arbitrating for access to a shared resource by a plurality of requesters and by a background requester in a processing system, the method comprising: assigning a priority value to each of the plurality of requestors; performing a multilayer arbitration contest to resolve each conflict between transaction requests to the shared resource, wherein a requester of the plurality of requesters having a highest priority value does not always win an arbitration contest including performing a first layer arbitration contest among a plurality of current requesters when contention did not occur on an immediate previous cycle by selecting a winner based upon rank of the current requestors within a first fixed order of the plurality of requestors unrelated to respective assigned priority values, and performing a second layer arbitration contest among a plurality of current requestors when contention did occur on an immediate previous cycle by selecting a winner having the highest assigned priority values of the current requesters; and accessing the shared resource by the winner of each arbitration contest.