time slicing

A thread pre-emption technique which allocates some amount of the resources time to each of the multiple threads (applications or tasks) requesting the resource.

The scheduler allows the current thread to run on a given processor until either the thread blocks or a time slice (a predetermined length of time) expires. At that time, the scheduler stops execution of the running thread and allows another eligible thread to run...until either it blocks or the time slice expires, and so on.