TRACKING A RELATIVE ARRIVAL ORDER OF EVENTS BEING STORED IN MULTIPLE QUEUES USING A COUNTER USING MOST SIGNIFICANT BIT VALUES

摘要

An order controller stores each received event in a separate entry in one of at least two queues with a separate counter value set from an arrival order counter at the time of storage, wherein the arrival order counter is incremented after storage of each of the received events and on overflow the arrival order counter wraps back to zero. The order controller calculates an exclusive OR value of a first top bit of a first counter for a first queue from among the at least two queues and a second top bit of a second counter for a second queue from among the at least two queues. The order controller compares the exclusive OR value with a comparator bit to determine whether a first counter value in the first counter was stored before a second counter value in the second counter