Explain the role of a bus arbiter in a multiprocessor configuration.

Bus arbiter: Which functions to resolve priority between bus masters and allows only one device at a time to access the shared bus. 8289 bus arbiter controls the interface of a bus master to a shared bus. This is designed to function with 8086/8088 microprocessors. Every bus master or microprocessor requires an arbiter for the interface to the shared bus which Intel calls MULTIBUS and IBM calls MICRO CHANNEL.

Shared bus used only to pass information from one microprocessor to another; or else, the bus master function in their own local bus modes by using their own local programs, memory and I/O space. Microprocessors connected in this kind of system are generally known as parallel or distributed processors as they can execute software and perform tasks in parallel