The present invention provides a method and apparatus for controlling a processing
priority assigned alternately to a first thread and a second thread in a multithreaded
processor to prevent deadlock and livelock problems between the first thread and
the second thread. In one embodiment, the processing priority is initially assigned
to the first thread for a first duration. It is then determined whether the first
duration has expired in a given processing cycle. If the first duration has expired,
the processing priority is assigned to the second thread for a second duration.
