Bus arbitration apparatus and bus arbitration method
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorsAtsushi Hayashi, Mitsuaki Shiraga, Katsuhiko Yamanaka
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is to provide a bus arbitration apparatus and a bus arbitration method not reducing data transfer capability as a whole and preventing a loss of transferred data. It performs the arbitration with priority in response to properties of bus masters. It sequentially arbitrates a first hierarchy bus master of which requests are urgent, a second hierarchy bus master that requests data processing in real time, and a third hierarchy bus master that is neither a first hierarchy bus master nor a second hierarchy bus master sequentially.
Claims10
A bus arbitration apparatus arbitrating data transfer requests for a bus from a plurality of bus masters,
- comprising:
- a first arbitration unit for arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of first bus masters, among the plurality of the bus masters, which request an assurance of delay time from the data transfer request until the data transfer starts;
- a second arbitration unit for arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of second bus masters, among the plurality of the bus masters, which perform a data transfer every predictable data transfer period, and
- a third arbitration unit for arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of third bus masters, among a plurality of the bus masters, which are not either the first bus masters or the second bus masters,
- wherein arbitrations are performed by the first to the third arbitration unit sequentially.
A bus arbitration method arbitrating data transfer requests for a bus from a plurality of bus masters, comprising the steps of
- arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of first bus masters, among a plurality of the bus masters, which request an assurance of delay time from the data transfer request until the data transfer starts;
- arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of second bus masters, among a plurality of the bus masters, which perform a data transfer every predictable data transfer period;
- and
- arbitrating data transfer requests of a plurality of third bus masters, among a plurality of the bus masters, which are not either the first bus masters or the second bus masters.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.