DIGITAL SYNCHRONOUS ARBITER SENSOR WITH SUCH AN ARBITER AND METHOD FOR SEQUENCING SYNCHRONISED EVENTS WITH SUCH AN ARBITER

摘要

In sensors with a number of sensor elements a number of sensor elements often provide information simultaneously. These events must be processed in a subsequent processing unit. An arbiter is generally provided which sequences the events and hence renders the same able to be processed. It is important for many applications to maintain the temporal sequence of the events as only then is an analysis of the sensor events possible. The present invention discloses an arbiter, which is capable of processing and sequencing a large amount of data, whilst simultaneously recording the temporal occurrence of events for processing and sequencing, wherein a time stamp generation unit (11) is provided in the arbiter (10) and the arbiter (10) provides each accepted event on acceptance by the arbiter (10) with a time stamp, corresponding to the occurrence time of the event and said events with the provided time stamp (TS) are sequentially outputted as time determined address events (TAE) at the sequential output from the arbiter (10).