| CPC H04L 47/125 (2013.01) [G06F 9/5011 (2013.01); G06F 13/36 (2013.01); H04L 47/50 (2013.01)] | 17 Claims |

|
1. A communication fabric having a maximum bandwidth, the maximum bandwidth corresponding to a maximum number of tokens, the communication fabric comprising:
a router comprising circuitry configured to allocate tokens to a plurality of clients according to a token allocation scheme, wherein each of the plurality of clients is configured to access a shared resource via the router, wherein the token allocation scheme comprises:
statically allocating a first number of tokens to at least one client that is not active of the plurality of clients, the first number of tokens being:
at least one token; and
less than the maximum number of tokens; and
dynamically allocating to each active client of the plurality of clients a second number of tokens from a free pool, the second number of tokens from the free pool is less than or equal to a difference between the maximum number of tokens and the first number of tokens;
deallocate one or more tokens from a given client while allowing the given client to maintain at least one token, based at least in part on a determination that the given client is no longer active; and
wherein a total buffering requirement in the router corresponding to a total number of packets for the plurality of clients is equal to a sum of the maximum number of tokens and a product of the first number of tokens and a total number of clients of the plurality of clients less one.
|