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:
Sep. 13, 2011
Filed:
Aug. 13, 2007
Michael C. Shebanow, Saratoga, CA (US);
Robert C. Keller, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Richard A. Silkebakken, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Michael C. Shebanow, Saratoga, CA (US);
Robert C. Keller, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Richard A. Silkebakken, Santa Clara, CA (US);
NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A unit status reporting protocol may also be used for context switching, debugging, and removing deadlock conditions in a processing unit. A processing unit is in one of five states: empty, active, stalled, quiescent, and halted. The state that a processing unit is in is reported to a front end monitoring unit to enable the front end monitoring unit to determine when a context switch may be performed or when a deadlock condition exists. The front end monitoring unit can issue a halt command to perform a context switch or take action to remove a deadlock condition and allow processing to resume.