Patent ID: 8356129

Claim:
A request arbitration apparatus for arbitrating a plurality of request holding sections which hold requests having priorities when the requests are output from the plurality of request holding sections to the output device, the request arbitration apparatus comprising: a setting section coupled to the plurality of request holding sections that sets the request holding section, which holds the highest priority request among all the requests held by the plurality of request holding sections, as a highest priority request holding section; a control section coupled to the plurality of request holding sections that controls the highest priority request holding section so that the request firstly held among all the requests held by the highest priority request holding section is output to the output device; and a priority change section coupled to the plurality of request holding sections that, for each request holding section, whenever the request holding section holds a new request, makes the priorities of the requests, which are lower than that of the new request among the requests already held by the request holding section, be equivalent to that of the new request, wherein the setting section sets the request holding section, which holds the highest priority requests among the requests held first by the plurality of request holding sections, as the highest priority request holding section.