Patent ID: 7809856

Claim:
A computer system, comprising: a peripheral device; a host device; a data bus in communication with the peripheral device and the host device, wherein the computer system further includes: a traffic classifier having a memory to store a priority level associated with virtual channel information of a data packet, the traffic classifier configured to: place data packets into a plurality of data queues including a first queue and a different queue, the traffic classifier places data packets based on a traffic classification of the data packets and with the traffic classification of the data packets indicative of a priority of the data packets, and with the first queue associated with a highest priority traffic classification; and determine the traffic classification of the data packets based at least in part on at least one of a virtual channel identifier and a virtual path identifier of the data packet; and a controller configured to control flow of data from the plurality of data queues to the data bus during data placement time cycles, wherein the controller is configured to place at least some data from the first queue on the data bus during each data placement time cycle when the first queue includes at least some data to be transmitted on the data bus, and the controller is further configured to place data from the different queue on the data bus when the first queue does not include data to be transmitted on the data bus.