US Patent 7380040 Software programmable dynamic arbitration scheme

A method for arbitration among a plurality of requesting devices for a shared resource in which one device is an ultra high priority device grants access to one requesting device at a time. The ultra high priority device is granted access if it requests access interrupting access by another device. The ultra high priority device is limited to a selectable number of accesses and thereafter is masked for a selectable interval. This interval permits access may by other devices. Each of the other devices is also limited to a selectable number of accesses followed by re-arbitration. The other devices can have a normal priority or a time out priority if a request hasn't been granted in a selectable amount of time.