Selecting among initiators requesting a shared resource. An arbiter grants permission before an initiator starts its bus transaction. Fixed priority can indefinitely postpone a lower-priority requester under continuing higher-priority demand. Rotating priority can provide starvation freedom when every owner releases the resource after bounded work. Neither policy alone determines bus throughput: waiting, setup and target readiness also matter.[ref]
Lecture 21: Buses and I and O. CS152 lecture 21, slides 35–36: reservation, priority and fairness
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