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:
Mar. 31, 2009
Filed:
Oct. 18, 2005
Michael C. Shebanow, Saratoga, CA (US);
Robert C. Keller, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Richard A. Silkebakken, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Benjamin J. Garlick, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Michael C. Shebanow, Saratoga, CA (US);
Robert C. Keller, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Richard A. Silkebakken, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Benjamin J. Garlick, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A halt sequencing protocol permits a context switch to occur in a processing pipeline even before all units of the processing pipeline are idle. The context switch method based on the halt sequencing protocol includes the steps of issuing a halt request signal to the units of a processing pipeline, monitoring the status of each of the units, and freezing the states of all of the units when they are either idle or halted. Then, the states of the units, which pertain to the thread that has been halted, are dumped into memory, and the units are restored with states corresponding to a different thread that is to be executed after the context switch.