Nvidia Corporation

National Semiconductor Corporation

Ram Gummadi

Mark Douglas Hummel

Samuel Hammond Duncan

Glenn A Dearth

Denis J Foley

John R Feehrer

Nicholas G Samra

Brian Kelleher

Vyas Venkataraman

Jeffrey A Lohman

John H Edmondson

Wishwesh Anil Gandhi

Shu-Yi Yu

Alok Gupta

Fabric Attached Memory (FAM) provides a pool of memory that can be accessed by one or more processors, such as a graphics processing unit(s) (GPU)(s), over a network fabric. In one instance, a technique is disclosed for using imperfect processors as memory controllers to allow memory, which is local to the imperfect processors, to be accessed by other processors as fabric attached memory. In another instance, memory address compaction is used within the fabric elements to fully utilize the available memory space.

Techniques for an efficient fabric attached memory

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method for accessing non-contiguous locations within a DRAM memory page by sending a first column address command to a first DRAM device using a first subset of pins and sending a second column address command to a second DRAM device using a second subset of repurposed pins. The technique requires minimal additional pins, space, and power consumption. Further, sending multiple column address commands allows for increased granularity of DRAM accesses and therefore more efficient use of pins. The technique for accessing non-contiguous locations within a DRAM memory page.

Address bit remapping scheme to reduce access granularity of DRAM accesses

Banks within a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) are managed with virtual bank managers. A DRAM controller receives a new memory access request to DRAM including a plurality of banks. If the request accesses a location in DRAM where no virtual bank manager includes parameters for the corresponding DRAM page, then a virtual bank manager is allocated to the physical bank associated with the DRAM page. The bank manager is initialized to include parameters needed by the DRAM controller to access the DRAM page. The memory access request is then processed using the parameters associated with the virtual bank manager. One advantage of the disclosed technique is that the banks of a DRAM module are controlled with fewer bank managers than in previous DRAM controller designs. As a result, less surface area on the DRAM controller circuit is dedicated to bank managers.

Approach for allocating virtual bank managers within a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) controller to physical banks within a DRAM

For use in a processor having a first number of decode units for decoding an ordered stream of floating point instructions, a floating point unit (FPU) for receiving decoded ones of the floating point instructions and a method of processing the decoded ones of the floating point instructions. In one embodiment, the FPU includes: (1) a second number of floating point pipelines that execute the floating point instructions, the second number being at least one and less than the first number, the floating point pipeline having a load unit, an execution core and a store unit, (2) a floating point checkpoint buffer, coupled to the decode units, that queues the decoded ones of the floating point instructions for allocation to the floating point pipelines and (3) a floating point register file, coupled to and cooperable with the floating point checkpoint buffer, that preserves states of the execution core to allow the floating point pipelines to execute the floating point instructions out of order.

Pipelined, superscalar floating point unit having out-of-order execution capability and processor employing the same

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ram Gummadi