Crossbar circuitry for applying an adaptive priority scheme and method of operation of such crossbar circuitry

Abstract

Interconnect circuitryhas a plurality of data source circuitsconnected to respective input pathsand a plurality of data destination circuitsconnected to respective output paths. Connection cellsprovide selective connections between input pathsand output paths. Arbitration circuitryprovides adaptive priority arbitration between overlapping requests received at different input paths. Priority bitswithin a matrix of priority bitfor each output pathare used to represent the priority relationships between different input paths which compete for access to that output path. Update operations are applied on a per row or per column basis within the matrix to implement update schemes such as least recently granted, most recently granted, round robin, reversal, swap, selective least recently granted, selective most recently granted etc.