Patent ID: 7228368

Claim:
A polling-based communication system comprising: a host computer comprising a system memory and a peripheral bus, the system memory comprising a plurality of queues, each configured to store data packets to be transmitted; and a peripheral slave device, connected to the host computer through the peripheral bus, comprising: an arbiter determining which queue is to be served next in accordance with a quality of service policy; a plurality of addressable entities, each corresponding to one of the queues within the system memory and, if granted, accepting the data packets over the peripheral bus from the corresponding queue; and a FIFO buffer storing the data packets fed by the addressable entities; wherein the host computer polls each addressable entity on the peripheral slave device by issuing a query packet, and initiates one or more transactions to transfer the data packets from one of the queues to the corresponding addressable entity that responds with an acknowledgement packet; wherein the arbiter, depending on the queue determined to be served next, grants the corresponding addressable entity access to the peripheral bus, causing the granted addressable entity to respond to the host computer's polling with the acknowledgement packet.