Arm Limited

Amir Kleen

David James Bermingham

Andreas Due Engh-Halstvedt

Jørn Nystad

Peter William Harris

Isidoros Sideris

Kenneth Edvard Østby

Eugenia Cordero-Crespo

An apparatus and method are provided for executing thread groups. The apparatus comprises scheduling circuitry for selecting for execution a first thread group from a plurality of thread groups, and thread processing circuitry that is responsive to the scheduling circuitry to execute active threads of the first thread group in dependence on a common program counter shared between the active threads. In response to an exit event occurring for the first thread group, the thread processing circuitry determines whether a program counter check condition is present, and this can be used to trigger program counter checking circuitry to perform a program counter check operation to update the common program counter and an active thread indication for the first thread group. The thread processing circuitry is provided with register storage in which program counter information for each thread of the first thread group can be stored, and the program counter checking circuitry is arranged to have access to that register storage when performing the program counter check operation. Further, the scheduling circuitry is arranged to select, for execution by the thread processing circuitry, a different thread group whilst awaiting performance of the program counter check operation by the program counter checking circuitry for the first thread group. This provides an area efficient mechanism for handling divergence and re-convergence of threads within thread groups, in a manner that avoids impacting performance.

Apparatus and method of executing thread groups

A graphics processing system sorts graphics primitives for rendering into lists corresponding to different sub-regions of a render output to be generated, each list indicating primitives to be processed for the render output. A primitive list building unit divides a render target into various sub-regions, determines which sub-regions a primitive falls within and adds the primitive to the primitive lists corresponding to those sub-regions. The primitive list building unit also records the positions of the primitives in a pair of histograms which show the distribution of primitives across the render output. Once all primitives for the render output have been sorted into lists, the histograms are outputted to a predictor processor. The predictor processor then determines a set of sub-region sizes to be used when sorting primitives for the next render output to be generated into lists, based on the histograms.

Method and apparatus for processing graphics

A graphics processing unitincludes a rasterizer, a thread spawner, a programmable execution unit, a varying interpolator, a texture mapper, and a blender. The programmable execution unitis able to communicate with the varying interpolator, the texture mapperand the blenderto request processing operations by those graphic specific accelerators. In addition to this, these graphics-specific accelerators are also able to communicate directly with each other and with the thread spawner, independently of the programmable execution unit. This allows for certain graphics processing operations to be performed using direct communication between the graphics-specific accelerators of the graphics processing unit, instead of executing instructions in the programmable execution unit to trigger the performance of those operations by the graphics-specific accelerators.

Data processing systems

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Amir Kleen