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:
Jan. 12, 2010
Filed:
Mar. 13, 2007
Marcelino M. Dignum, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Rahoul Puri, Los Altos, CA (US);
Marcelino M. Dignum, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Rahoul Puri, Los Altos, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for dynamically arbitrating, in hardware, requests for a resource shared among multiple clients. Multiple data streams or service requests require access to a shared resource, such as memory, communication bandwidth, etc. A hardware arbiter monitors the streams' traffic levels and determines when one or more of their arbitration weights should be adjusted. When a queue used by one of the streams is filled to a threshold level, the hardware reacts by quickly and dynamically modifying that queue's arbitration weight. Therefore, as the queue is filled or emptied to different thresholds, the queue's arbitration weight rapidly changes to accommodate the corresponding client's temporal behavior. The arbiter may also consider other factors, such as the client's type of traffic, a desired quality of service, available credits, available descriptors, etc.