Patent ID: 6868087

Claim:
A method of prioritizing data transfer requests serviced by a centralized data transfer unit comprising the steps of: receiving transfer request packets, each transfer request packet indicating a desired data transfer and a priority level within a hierarchy of a plurality of priority levels; storing each received transfer request packet in a queue memory, each received transfer request packet stored in a first-in-first-out fashion within each priority level, said storing including storing each received transfer request packet in a random access memory fashion, defining an address range within said queue memory allocated to each priority level with a corresponding queue bounds register, storing a next input transfer request packet for a priority level at address within said queue memory indicated by a corresponding queue write pointer indicating address location, reading a next output transfer request packet for a priority level from an address within said queue memory indicated by a corresponding queue read pointer, dynamically defining said address range allocated to a priority level by dynamically writing to a corresponding queue bounds register; detecting availability of free data transfer channel among a plurality of data transfer channels within said centralized data transfer processor; and dispatching a next transfer request packet in said first-in-first-out fashion to the corresponding free data transfer channel.