Avalon bus - what makes it so special?

From the document:

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One share represents permission to perform one transfer.

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Suppose two masters are connected to a slave. Master 1 has 5 shares on the slave and Master 2 has 1 share. This means that Master 1 is allowed to issue up to 5 consecutive transfers to the slave (read or write). If it only has 4 transfers it needs to make then it gives up it's 5th share to the other master (Master 2). Master 2 may then issue one transfer to the slave (read or write). After this, the arbiter goes back to Master 1 to see if it has any transfers to make. If so, Master 1 is again allowed to make up to 5 transfers.

With regards to bursts; if a master is a burst master, the document specifies:

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For burst masters, the size of the burst determines the number of cycles that the master has access to the slave, and the selected arbitration shares have no effect.

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Or essentially, a burst master really only gets one share on the slave and it uses its burst value to control how many accesses it will make.

Jake