Method for improving flexibility of arbitration of direct memory access (DMA) engines requesting access to shared DMA channels

A direct memory access (DMA) arbitration circuit, coupled between at least one DMA channel and a plurality of DMA engines of a first device, the DMA arbitration circuit comprising:

• a DMA engine arbiter, coupled to the plurality of DMA engines, determining whether more than one DMA engines are competing a target channel, requesting the second device to select a channel owner from the more than one DMA engines if more than one DMA engines are competing the target channel, wherein the second device and the first device are on opposite sides of the target channel;
• a DMA channel select logic, coupled to the DMA engine arbiter, for enabling the channel owner to be dynamically coupled to and use the target channel;
• and
• a plurality of channel select registers, coupled to the DMA channel select logic and the DMA engine arbiter, for storing a plurality of channel select settings, each of which represents one of the at least one DMA channel requested by one of the plurality of DMA engines, wherein the DMA engine arbiter checks the plurality of channel select settings to determine whether more than one DMA engines are competing a target channel,
• wherein the at least one DMA channel is used by the plurality of DMA engines to direct data transmission between the plurality of DMA engines and a second device.