Observing arbiter

Abstract

An arbiter is disclosed for determining a sequence of signals indicative of events occurring variously on at least two input connections. The arbiter includes a first input connection and a second input connection for carrying the signals indicative of events. A first input queue for storing representations of events that are waiting to be processed is connected to the first input connection, and a second input queue also for storing representations of events that are waiting to be processed is connected to the second input connection. An arbitration circuit coupled to the first input queue and to the second input queue receives the representations of events from each of the queues and determines the temporal order of occurrence of the event representations in the queues when the events arrive at time intervals greater than a specified amount, and arbitrarily assigns a sequence to one or the other of the events from the queues when the events arrive at time intervals equal to or less than the specified amount. In response the arbitration circuit reports the temporal order or arbitrary sequence as a sequence of output signals and removes each event representation from the appropriate queue when reporting its temporal order or sequence.