Arm Limited

Sean Tristram Ellis

Daren Croxford

Jorn Nystad

Edward Charles Plowman

Andreas Due Engh-Halstvedt

Ben James

Alexis Mather

Dominic Hugo Symes

Simon Andrew Ford

Ola Hugosson

Sandeep Kakarlapudi

Donald Kenneth Felton

Andrew Burdass

Hakan Persson

Anders Lassen

Eivind Liland

Lars Ericsson

Thomas James Cooksey

Tom Cooksey

Simon Alex Charles

Robin Paul Fell

Andreas Engh Halstvedt

Andrew Helge Cox

Joe D Tapply

Robert Elliot

A data processing system comprises processing circuitry arranged to generate data to form an output array of data, processing circuitry arranged to store the generated data in an output bufferby writing compressed blocks of data representing particular regions of the output array of data to the output buffer, processing circuitryarranged to read a compressed block of data representing a particular region of the array of data from the output buffer, processing circuitryarranged to acquire meta-data from the compressed block of data, and processing circuitryarranged to process the block of data. The acquired meta-data is used to affect the processing of the block of data.

Data processing systems

A tile based graphics processing pipeline comprises a plurality of processing stages, including at least a rasterizer that rasterizes input primitives to generate graphics fragments to be processed, and a renderer that processes fragments generated by the rasterizer to generate rendered fragment data, and a processing stageoperable to receive rendered fragment data, and to perform a processing operation using the rendered fragment data to generate per-tile metadata

Graphics processing systems

A method and an apparatus are provided for generating an output frame from an input frame, in which the input frame is processed when generating the output frame. A region of a current input frame is compared with a region of a preceding input frame to determine if the region of the current input frame is similar to the region of the preceding input frame. When the region of the current input frame is determined to be similar to the region of the preceding input frame, information relating to processing performed on the region of the preceding input frame when generating a region of a preceding output frame is read, wherein the information is generated during the processing on the region of the preceding input frame. When the information indicates that the processing is unnecessary, a part or all of the processing of the region of the current input frame can be bypassed or eliminated.

Method of and apparatus for generating an output frame

When rendering a region of a three-dimensional object represented by a base set of polygon vertices in a graphics processing pipeline, a first processing stage uses meta-information representative of the surface relief of the region of the three-dimensional object to determine whether to generate a set of additional polygon vertices over the region of the three-dimensional object, and generates the additional set of polygon vertices (when this is deemed necessary). A second processing stage then uses information representative of the surface relief of the region of the three-dimensional object to modify the positions of one or more of the polygon vertices, before the vertices are assembled into primitives that are then rasterised and rendered.

Generating polygon vertices using surface relief information

A graphics processing pipeline determines whether respective graphics processing operations, such as respective blends, respective depth tests, etc., to be performed at a stage of the graphics processing pipeline would produce the same result for each sampling point of a set of plural sampling points represented by a fragment being processed by the graphics processing pipeline. If it is determined that respective graphics processing operations would produce the same result for each of the sampling points, then only a single instance of the graphics processing operation is performed and the result of that graphics processing operation is associated with each of the sampling points. The number of instances of the graphics processing operations needed to process the set of plural sampling points which the fragment represents is reduced in comparison to conventional multisampling graphics processing techniques which perform graphics processing operations for fragments on a 'per sample' basis. The determination of whether or not the same result would be produced for each sampling point of the set of plural sampling points is facilitated by providing metadata which indicates whether or not fragment data and/or stored sample data for use when processing the sampling points is the same.

Method and apparatus for graphics processing of a graphics fragment

In a tile-based graphics processing system, when a tile for a render output is to be generated, the fragment data storage requirements for each fragment to be generated for the tile is determined, and a color and/or depth buffer in the tile buffer is allocated for use by the fragments for the tile based on the determination. The graphics processing pipeline then, when generating rendered fragment data for the tile, stores the rendered fragment data in the color buffer and/or depth buffer of the tile buffer allocated to the fragments for the tile

A data processing systemincludes a CPU, a GPU, a video processing engine (video engine), a display controller(or an image processing engine) and a memory controllerall having access to off-chip memory A frame to be displayed is generated by, for example, being appropriately rendered by the GPUor video engine. The display controller(or the image processing engine) then performs display modifications, such as luminance compensation, on the frame to provide an output frame for display. The display controller(or the image processing engine) also provides display modification information (such as determined luminance compensation parameters) to the GPUand video engine. The display modification information is then used to modify the data that is generated for a frame to be displayed.

Method of and apparatus for processing data for a display

A tile-based graphics processing pipeline comprising a rasteriser, a renderer, a tile bufferconfigured to store rendered fragment data locally to the graphics processing pipeline prior to that data being written out to an external memory, a write out stageconfigured to write data stored in the tile buffer to an external memory, and a programmable processing stage. The programmable processing stageis operable under the control of graphics program instructions to read fragment data stored in the tile bufferon a random access basis, perform a processing operation using the read fragment data, and write the result of the processing operation into the tile bufferor to an external memory.

A data processing system includes a host processor and a graphics processing unit operable to process data under the control of an operating system executing on the host processor. The graphics processing unit can be switched between a normal mode of operation in which the it has read and write access to data that is stored in non-protected memory regionsbut no or write-only access to any protected memory regions, and a protected mode of operation in which it has read and write access to data that is stored in protected memory regionsbut only has read-only access to any non-protected memory regions. The data processing system further comprises a mechanism for switching the graphics processing unit from its normal mode of operation to the protected mode of operation, and from its protected mode of operation to the normal mode of operation.

When processing a set of tiles to generate an output in a tile based graphics processing pipeline, the pipeline, for one or more tiles of the set of tiles, renders one or more render targets containing data to be used in a processing operation (), and stores the render targets in the tile buffer (). It also stores some but not all of the sampling position values for a render target or targets for use when processing an adjacent tile of the set of tiles (). It then performs a processing operation for the tile using the stored render target or targets () and one or more stored sampling position values from another, adjacent tile of the set of tiles (), to generate an output for the tile ().

A data processor of a processing system, such as a graphics processing system, converts an input data value into an output data value by approximating a function which maps input values to output values. The data processor approximates the function using first and second predetermined ranges of values which are quantized into plural corresponding pairs of range sections, a predetermined gradient for each pair of range sections, and predetermined section end values for each pair of range sections. By using these predetermined parameters, the approximation of the function can be implemented efficiently by the data processor of the processing system.

Methods of and apparatus for approximating a function

A graphics processing apparatus performs tile based compositing operations. Tile metadata includes flag data, such as transparency and/or intensity flag data, indicating whether a given input graphics tile makes less than a predetermined first threshold level of contribution or more than a second predetermined threshold level of contribution to a corresponding output graphics tile. For example, if an input graphics tile is transparent, then its reading from a memory and/or subsequent processing may be suppressed. If a given input graphics tile is opaque, then underlying input graphics tiles that are obscured may have their reading and/or further processing suppressed.

Graphics tile compositing control

In a data processing system, an output surface, such as frame to be displayed, is generated as a plurality of respective regions with each respective region of the output surface being generated from a respective region or regions of one or more input surfaces. When a new version of the output surface is to be generated, for each region of the output surface it is determined which region or regions of the input surface or surfaces contribute to the region of the output surfaceand then checked whether the contributing region or regions of the input surface or surfaces have changed since the previous version of the output surface region was generated. If there has been a change in the contributing region or regions of the input surface or surfaces since the previous version of the region in the output surface was generated, the region of the output surface is regenerated

Method and apparatus for generating an output surface from one or more input surfaces in data processing systems

When encoding an array of texture data elements to be used in a graphics processing system, the array of texture data elements is divided into a plurality of non-rectangular sub-sets of texture data elements, and each non-rectangular sub-set of texture data elements that the texture has been divided into is then encoded to generate an encoded texture data block representing that non-rectangular sub-set of the texture data elements, to thereby provide a set of encoded texture data blocks representing the texture.

Methods of and apparatus for encoding and decoding data

A single instruction multiple data processing pipelinefor processing floating point operands includes shared special case handling circuitryfor performing any operand dependent special case processing operations. The operand dependent special case processing operations result from special case conditions such as operands that are denormal, an infinity, a not-a-number and a floating point number requiring format conversion. The pipelinemay in some embodiments be stalled while the operands requiring special case processing are serially shifted to and from the shared special case handling circuitry. In other embodiments the instruction in which the special case condition for an operand arose may be recirculated through the pipeline with permutation circuitrybeing used to swap the operands between lanes in order to place the operand(s) requiring special case processing operations into the lane containing the shared special case handling circuitry

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Farnham, United Kingdom

Sean Tristram Ellis