Patent ID: 7882292

Claim:
A system comprising: a first client configured to generate a first request for access to a resource; a second client configured to generate a second request for access to the resource; an arbiter configured to receive the first request for access and the second request for access and to grant access to the memory in an order based at least in part on a comparison of an urgency of the first request and an urgency of the second request; wherein the first client is further configured to generate a sequence number for the first request and transmit to the arbiter the sequence number and a number of replies consumed by the first client and wherein the arbiter is configured to determine the urgency of the first request based on a difference between the sequence number and the number of replies consumed by the first client, and wherein a lower value of the difference between the sequence number and the number of replies consumed by the first client indicates higher priority, and a higher value of the difference between the sequence number and the number of replies consumed by the first client indicates lower priority.