TM1100 Preliminary Data Book
Philips Semiconductors
19-2
PRELIMINARY INFORMATION
File: arb.fm5, modified 7/23/99
handled as high-priority requests until the ARB_RAISE
register contents has been changed for the application
requirements.
Corner-case note: There is some risk in setting the delay
high, then lowering it, as the last request submitted with
the high delay might violate the latency constraints of the
new real-time domain.
However this should not happen since this register
should be set before the application starts.
The other devices (AI, AO and BTI (Boot Block)) and the
CPU will always have their requests considered as high
priority.
High priority for the CPU will give maximum possible per-
formance.
AO and AI requests are happening at very low rate.
Hence, the probability that they take time away from the
CPU is negligible.
19.3
ROUND ROBIN ARBITRATION
In addition to the dual priority mechanism a round-robin
arbitration is used to schedule the requests that have the
same priority.
The purpose is to ensure, for every device with a high pri-
ority request, a maximum latency for gaining access to
the highway and/or a minimum share of the available
bandwidth.
Round-robin arbitration ensures that no starvation of re-
quests can occur and therefore requests with real-time
constraints can be handled in time.
The round robin arbitration algorithm is as follows.
Requests are granted according to a dynamic priority list.
Whenever a device gets a request granted it will be
moved to the last position in the priority list and another
device will be moved to the first position in the priority list.
Priorities are rotated. A device with a waiting request will
eventually reach the first place in the priority list.
arbitration state machine with 2 requesters. The nodes A
and B indicate states A and B. In state A requester A has
ownership of the highway, in state B requester B has
ownership. The arc from state A to state B indicates that
if the current state is state A and a request from request-
er B is asserted, then a transition to state B occurs, i.e.
ownership of the highway passes from requester A to re-
quester B.
When in a particular state none of the arcs leaving from
that node has its condition fulfilled, then the state ma-
chine remains in the same state.
When both requester A and B have requests asserted,
then ownership of the highway switches between A and
B, creating fair allocation of ownership.
Figure 19-2 pictures a state diagram that allocates fair
arbitration with 3 requesters.
19.3.1
Weighted Round Robin Arbitration
Not all devices need to have equal latency and band-
width. It is preferred to allocate bandwidth to units ac-
cording to their needs. This is achieved with weighted
round-robin and can be illustrated in the following exam-
ples.
Figure 19-3 pictures a state machine with two requesters
A and B with double weight given to requester A. There
are now 2 states A1 and A2 where requester A has own-
ership of the highway. When both A and B requests are
asserted, then requester A will have twice as often own-
ership of the highway than requester B.
A
B
Figure 19-1. State diagram of round robin arbitra-
tor with 2 requesters.
B
A
AB
Figure 19-2. State diagram of round robin arbitra-
tor with 3 requesters.
A&~C
B
C
A
C
B&~A
C&~B
A1
B
Figure 19-3. State diagram of round robin arbitra-
tor with 2 requesters; A has double weight.
B&~A
A
A2
A
B