Patent ID: 7453898

Claim:
A method for scheduling, the method comprising: identifying a maximum number of requests that can be sent from a particular input; and for each iteration of one or more iterations of a scheduling process performing each of steps (1), (2), and (3): (1) identifying a number of high priority requests corresponding to a first priority of packets desired to be sent from the particular input to a particular output, wherein the number of high priority requests is less than or equal to the maximum number of requests; (2) identifying a number of low priority requests corresponding to a second priority of packets desired to be sent from the particular input to the particular output, wherein the number of low priority requests is less than or equal to the maximum number of requests minus the number of high priority requests; and (3) signaling a grant arbiter associated with the particular output both: (a) the number of high priority requests and (b) the number of low priority requests.