Via Technologies, Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

S3 Graphics Co., Ltd.

Ati Technologies Ulc

Timour T Paltashev

Boris Prokopenko

John Wakefield Brothers

Derek Gladding

Michael Mantor

Hsilin Huang

Jiasheng Chen

Vladimir V Kibardin

Konstantine I Iourcha

Rex Eldon McCrary

Carl Kittredge Wakeland

Alexander Lyashevsky

Jeff Jiao

Chris Brennan

Bin He

Yang (Jeff) Jiao

YunXiao Zou

David Ronald Oldcorn

Qingcheng Wang

Syed Zohaib M Gilani

Qunfeng (Fred) Liao

Yi-Jung Su

Qunfeng Liao

Derek Edward Davout Gladding

A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a plurality of programmable processing cores configured to process graphics primitives and corresponding data and a plurality of fixed-function hardware units. The plurality of processing cores and the plurality of fixed-function hardware units are configured to implement a configurable number of virtual pipelines to concurrently process different command flows. Each virtual pipeline includes a configurable number of fragments and an operational state of each virtual pipeline is specified by a different context. The configurable number of virtual pipelines can be modified from a first number to a second number that is different than the first number. An emulation of a fixed-function hardware unit can be instantiated on one or more of the graphics processing cores in response to detection of a bottleneck in a fixed-function hardware unit. One or more of the virtual pipelines can then be reconfigured to utilize the emulation instead of the fixed-function hardware unit.

Reconfigurable virtual graphics and compute processor pipeline

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing a graphics processing unit (GPU) coprocessor are disclosed. The GPU coprocessor includes a SIMD unit with the ability to self-schedule sub-wave procedures based on input data flow events. A host processor sends messages targeting the GPU coprocessor to a queue. In response to detecting a first message in the queue, the GPU coprocessor schedules a first sub-task for execution. The GPU coprocessor includes an inter-lane crossbar and intra-lane biased indexing mechanism for a vector general purpose register (VGPR) file. The VGPR file is split into two files. The first VGPR file is a larger register file with one read port and one write port. The second VGPR file is a smaller register file with multiple read ports and one write port. The second VGPR introduces the ability to co-issue more than one instruction per clock cycle.

Low power and low latency GPU coprocessor for persistent computing

A method, a system, and a computer-readable storage medium directed to performing high-speed parallel tessellation of 3D surface patches are disclosed. The method includes generating a plurality of primitives in parallel. Each primitive in the plurality is generated by a sequence of functional blocks, in which each sequence acts independently of all the other sequences.

Method and apparatus for performing high throughput tessellation

Described is a method and processing apparatus to improve power efficiency by gating redundant threads processing. In particular, the method for gating redundant threads in a graphics processor includes determining if data for a thread and data for at least another thread are within a predetermined similarity threshold, gating execution of the at least another thread if the data for the thread and the data for the at least another thread are within the predetermined similarity threshold, and using an output data from the thread as an output data for the at least another thread.

Method and processing apparatus for gating redundant threads

A method and apparatus for real time compressing randomly accessed data includes extracting a block of randomly accessed data from a memory hierarchy. One or more individual portions of the randomly accessed data are independently compressed in real time to create a lossless compressed image surface. The compressed image surface includes data of independently compressed image blocks for reading and decompressing in a random order. The method further includes storing structured information relating to the dynamically compressed randomly accessed data.

Method and apparatus for compressing randomly accessed data

A parallel adaptable graphics rasterization system in which a primitive assembler includes a router to selectively route a primitive to a first rasterizer or one of a plurality of second rasterizers. The second rasterizers concurrently operate on different primitives and the primitive is selectively routed based on an area of the primitive. In some variations, a bounding box of the primitive is reduced to a predetermined number of pixels prior to providing the primitive to the one of the plurality of second rasterizers. Reducing the bounding box can include subtracting an origin of the bounding box from coordinates of points that represent the primitive.

Parallel micropolygon rasterizers

A shader in a graphics pipeline accesses an object that represents a portion of a model of a scene in object space and one or more far-z values that indicate a furthest distance of a previously rendered portion of one or more tiles from a viewpoint used to render the scene on a screen. The one or more tiles overlap a bounding box of the object in a plane of the screen. The shader culls the object from the graphics pipeline in response to the one or more far-z values being smaller than a near-z value that represents a closest distance of a portion of the object to the viewpoint.

Culling objects from a 3-D graphics pipeline using hierarchical Z buffers

A system and method for allocating commands in processing is disclosed. The system and method includes an application running on a computer system that provides commands to be executed on one of a plurality of processors capable of executing the commands, the commands provided through an application programming interface, a device driver that buffers the streamed commands and converts the streamed commands into a format used by a GPU, and an operating system that builds a command buffer by grouping a plurality of converted commands based on an allocation for an available processor, wherein the available processor is determined in the interface between the device driver and the operating system. The available processor is one of the plurality of processors capable of executing the commands that receives the command buffer from the operating system, queues the command buffer and performs an asynchronous submission of the command buffer to the GPU, and the GPU executes the command buffer.

Asynchronous submission of commands

Graphics processing units (GPUs) are used, for example, to process data related to three-dimensional objects or scenes and to render the three-dimensional data onto a two-dimensional display screen. One embodiment, among others, of a unified cache system used in a GPU comprises a data storage device and a storage device controller. The data storage device is configured to store graphics data processed by or to be processed by one or more shader units. The storage device controller is placed in communication with the data storage device. The storage device controller is configured to dynamically control a storage allocation of the graphics data within the data storage device.

Graphics processor having unified cache system

A graphics pipeline configured to synchronize data processing according to signals and tokens has at least four components. The first component has one input and one output and communicates output tokens or wire signals after receiving tokens on the input, an internal event occurrence, or receipt of a signal on an input path. The second component has one input and a plurality of outputs and communicates tokens or wire signals on one of the outputs after receiving tokens on the input, an internal event occurrence, or receipt of a signal on an input path. The third component has a plurality of inputs and one output and communicates tokens or wire signals on the output after receiving tokens on one of the inputs, an internal event occurrence, or receipt of a signal on an input path. The fourth component has a plurality of inputs and a plurality of outputs and has the capabilities of both the third and forth components.

GPU pipeline synchronization and control system and method

Systems and methods for sharing a physical cache among one or more clients in a stream data processing pipeline are described. One embodiment is directed to a system for sharing caches between two or more clients. The system comprises a physical cache memory having a memory portion accessed through a cache index. The system further comprises at least two virtual cache spaces mapping to the memory portion, each of the virtual cache spaces has an active window which has a different size than the memory portion. Further, the system comprises at least one virtual cache controller configured to perform a hit-miss test on the active window of the virtual cache space in response to a request from one of the clients for accessing the physical cache memory. Furthermore, data is accessed from the corresponding location of the memory portion when the hit-miss test of the cache index returns a hit.

Caching method and apparatus for a vertex shader and geometry shader

A programmable graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a first shader stage configured to receive slice data from a frame buffer and perform variable length decoding (VLD), wherein the first shader stage outputs data to a first buffer within the frame buffer; a second shader stage configured to receive the output data from the first shader stage and perform transformation and motion compensation on the slice data, wherein the second shader stage outputs decoded slice data to a second buffer within the frame buffer; a third shader stage configured to receive the decoded slice data and perform in-loop deblocking filtering (IDF) on the frame buffer; a fourth shader stage configured to perform post-processing on the frame buffer; and a scheduler configured to schedule execution of the shader stages, the scheduler comprising a plurality of counter registers; wherein execution of the shader stages is synchronized utilizing the counter registers.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Timour T Paltashev