Method and apparatus for speculative response arbitration to improve system latency

1. A method comprising:

receiving events; and

granting a default bus request based on said events by predicting an occurrence of said default bus request, wherein said events are selected from the group consisting of expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, and input received from another arbiter.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said granting is not based on a current or pending bus request.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a plurality of bus requests;

determining a characteristic from said plurality of received bus requests; and

granting said default bus request based on said characteristic.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said events are further selected from the group consisting of a most likely unit to request access next, a priori information, system information, and dynamically generated information.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said granted default bus request allows a device to communicate via a bus granted without first requesting said bus.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said granted default bus request occurs substantially simultaneously with a device's requesting a bus that was granted by said default bus request.

7. A processing system comprising a processor, which when executing a set of instructions performs the method of claim 1 .

8. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which when executed performs the method of claim 1 .

9. A method comprising granting a default bus request based on an event selected from the group consisting of a most likely unit to request access next, expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, input received from another arbiter, a priori information, system information, and dynamically generated information.

10. A processing system comprising a processor, which when executing a set of instructions performs the method of claim 9 .

11. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which when executed performs the method of claim 9 .

12. A method comprising:

receiving communications from one or more arbiters; and

granting a default bus request based on said received communications by predicting an occurrence of said default bus request, wherein said communications are selected from the group consisting of expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, and input received from another arbiter.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said granting is not based on a current or pending bus request.

14. An apparatus comprising:

a means for receiving events; and

a means for granting a default bus request based on said events by predicting an occurrence of said default bus request, wherein said events are selected from the group consisting of expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, and input received from another arbiter.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a means for granting a default bus request based on an event selected from the group consisting of a most likely unit to request access next, expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, input received from another arbiter, a priori information, system information, and dynamically generated information.

16. An apparatus comprising:

a means for receiving communications from one or more arbiters; and

a means for granting a default bus request based on said received communications by predicting an occurrence of said default bus request, wherein said communications are selected from the group consisting of expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, and input received from another arbiter.

17. An apparatus comprising:

a distributed arbiter having an input to receive communications from one or more arbiters, wherein the distributed arbiter also having logic to grant a default bus request based on said received communications by predicting an occurrence of said default bus request, wherein said communications are selected from the group consisting of expected or known delay between a request to a specific entity and a response from said specific entity for requests that have responses, knowledge about which entities are expected to send a response in reaction to requests that have been sent or are about to be sent, expected or known delay between request information and write data for a request, other expected or known system requests that occur as a reaction to others, and input received from another arbiter.