Importance

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Abstract

A system and method for bus arbitration. A computer system includes one or more buses for transferring data. Access to each bus is controlled by an arbitration unit. Various bus agents (i.e. peripherals) are coupled to the bus. Some bus agents are designated as normal-priority agents, while other bus agents are designated as high-priority bus agents. A high-priority bus agent may be a peripheral that is a latency-sensitive device. The arbitration unit may grant bus access to a normal-priority bus agent based on an arbitration scheme. When a high-priority bus agent requests access to the bus, the arbitration unit may cause the termination of access by the normal-priority bus agent. The high-priority bus agent is then granted access to the bus. When the high-priority bus agent has completed its use of the bus, the arbitration unit allows the normal-priority bus agent to regain access to the bus.

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First Claim