| 摘要 |
A method and apparatus for arbitrating access to a bus such that the bus can operate at a variable data rate, that rate being the rate of the slower of the two devices communicating over the bus. The smart arbiter in accordance with the invention has knowledge of the speed of the devices that use the bus and grants access in an order and at a rate based on that information. The smart arbiter can intersperse grants such that data transfers between multiple pairs of transmitting and receiving devices that are not independently utilizing the maximum bandwidth capabilities of the bus can overlap. Thus, if one pair of devices are exchanging multiple consecutive words (or other units of data) at a rate slower than the maximum rate of the bus, another pair of devices can use some of the bus clock cycles between the transfer of words of the first device pair, for transfers of words between the second device pair.
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