The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 19, 2007
Filed:
Sep. 29, 2004
Dominic Acocella, Blainville, CA;
Henry Packard Moreton, Woodside, CA (US);
Robert W. Gimby, West Bloomfield, MI (US);
Thomas H. Kong, Los Altos, CA (US);
Andrew D. Bowen, Austin, TX (US);
Dominic Acocella, Blainville, CA;
Henry Packard Moreton, Woodside, CA (US);
Robert W. Gimby, West Bloomfield, MI (US);
Thomas H. Kong, Los Altos, CA (US);
Andrew D. Bowen, Austin, TX (US);
NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention provide circuits, methods, and apparatus that improve utilization of storage buffers by overwriting data in them as soon as the data is no longer needed. An exemplary embodiment employs a counter to add each time a particular unit of data is needed by a circuit. The counter also subtracts each time the data is actually used by the circuit. When the counter reaches zero, upstream circuitry is checked to see if a command allowing the particular data to be overwritten has been issued. If it has, the command is not waited for, rather the data may be overwritten immediately. Embodiments of the present invention may also make use of one level of indirection to mask physical storage buffer locations from upstream circuitry. In this way, utilization can be improved.