Multimedia system employing timers to properly allocate bus access

摘要

An arbiter connects a plurality of devices to a bus. The arbiter determines priority among the devices based on minimum access intervals associated with the devices and timers which keep track of the elapsed time since each device last had access to the bus. The timers can be configured to either count up from zero to the minimum access interval of each device or count down from the minimum access interval of each device to zero. The arbiter can also adjust the minimum access intervals of the various devices based upon factors such as the amount of data required by the device, the amount of data most recently received by the device and the transfer rate of the device. The arbiter thus optimizes bus usage while minimizing the likelihood of a given device not functioning based on an ability to access the bus due to contention with other devices.