Bus arbitration system
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorRichard Nicholas
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A circuit arrangement, program product and method for bus arbitration alters the sequence in which device requests are arbitrated with respect to each other and to a previous arbitration sequence. To this end, an arbiter grants access to a first group of devices according to a predetermined sequence. The arbiter then automatically alters the sequence for a second group of devices, granting access to the bus for the second group according to the altered sequence. These features allow the order in which the arbiter sequences through the groups to be automatically varied with respect to each other, diminishing the likelihood of lockout.
Claims23
A method for bus arbitration in a computer system, the method comprising:
- granting access to a bus for a first plurality of devices according to a predetermined sequence;
- automatically altering the predetermined sequence;
- and
- granting access to the bus for a second plurality of devices according to the altered sequence.
A circuit arrangement comprising arbitration logic configured to grant access to a plurality of devices operatively connected to a bus by granting bus access to a first group of the plurality of devices according to a predetermined sequence, automatically altering the predetermined sequence, and granting access to the bus for a second group of devices according to the altered sequence.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.