Patent ID: 7698454

Claim:
A system, comprising: a memory to store data associated with a plurality of incoming streams of different speeds; an interface controller comprising a first arbitration element to arbitrate among the streams to store the data in the memory, the first arbitration element including a number of first entries, each of the first entries indicating which of the streams is to be serviced in each of a plurality of first time slots, the streams being assigned to the first entries based on the speeds of the streams, where a quantity of the first entries, in the first arbitration element, assigned to one of the streams with a faster one of the different speeds is larger than a quantity of the first entries, in the first arbitration element, assigned to another one of the streams with a slower one of the different speeds, where the interface controller is to: identify one of the first entries corresponding to a particular one of the plurality of first time slots, determine a particular one of the streams identified by the one of the first entries, and store data, associated with the particular one of the streams, in the memory; and a dispatch unit comprising a second arbitration element to arbitrate among the streams to read the data from the memory, the second arbitration element including a number of second entries, each of the second entries indicating which of the streams is to be serviced in each of a plurality of second time slots, the streams being assigned to the second entries based on the speeds of the streams, where a quantity of the second entries, in the second arbitration element, assigned to the one of the streams with the faster one of the different speeds is larger than a quantity of the second entries, in the second arbitration element, assigned to the other one of the streams with the slower one of the different speeds, where the dispatch unit is to: identify one of the second entries corresponding to a particular one of the plurality of second time slots, determine a certain one of the streams identified by the one of the second entries, and read data, associated with the certain one of the streams, from the memory.