The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 21, 1995
Filed:
Jan. 05, 1993
Price W Oman, Raleigh, NC (US);
Andrew J Rindos, III, Durham, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A central arbiter uses priority generators to determine which resource on a shared bus has priority in accessing the bus. Each resource has a corresponding priority generator. Each priority generator has a counter having inputs and outputs. A starting value is provided at the inputs and the priority value is obtained from the outputs. Each priority generator has a comparator that compares the outputs of a counter with a modulo number of the counters, N. The priority generators provide a combination of fixed priority and round robin arbitration schemes. By selecting the value of N relative to the number of resources, the rate of round robin access relative to fixed priority access can be set.