Patents by Inventor Albert C. Kuo
Albert C. Kuo has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Publication number: 20230298124Abstract: Embodiments relate to an image signal processor that includes an image processing circuit, a buffer, and a rate limiter circuit. The image processing circuit perform operations associated with image signal processing. The buffer stores the image data provided by the system memory. The buffer includes a shared that is dynamically allocated among the image processing circuits. The rate limiter circuit arbitrates allocation of the shared section. The arbitration process includes allocating data credits for the shared section to an image processing circuit. The rate limiter circuit determines a first number of blocks in the shared section that are allocated for pending requests and a second number of blocks that include data pending to be consumed by the image processing circuit. If the total allocated blocks occupied by the image processing circuit exceed a throttling threshold, the image processing circuit will be throttled by an exponential factor.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 15, 2022Publication date: September 21, 2023Inventors: Ashwin S. Subramanian, Damon W Finney, Marc A Schaub, Albert C Kuo, Paul S Serris, Richard L Schober
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Patent number: 9747658Abstract: Embodiments of an apparatus and method are disclosed that may allow for arbitrating multiple read requests to fetch pixel data from a memory. The apparatus may include a first and a second processing pipeline, and a control unit. Each of the processing pipelines may be configured to generate a plurality of read requests to fetch a respective one of a plurality of portions of stored pixel data. The control unit may be configured to determine a priority for each read request dependent upon display coordinates of one or more pixels corresponding to each of the plurality of portions of stored pixel data, and determine an order for the plurality of read requests dependent upon the determined priority for each read request.Type: GrantFiled: September 6, 2013Date of Patent: August 29, 2017Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo, Hao Chen
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Patent number: 9153212Abstract: In an embodiment, a display pipe is configured to composite one or more frames of images and/or video sequences to generate output frames for display. Additionally, the display pipe may be configured to compress an output frame and write the compressed frame to memory responsive to detecting static content in the output frames. The display pipe may also be configured to read the compressed frame from memory for display instead of reading the frames for compositing and display. In some embodiments, the display pipe may include an idle screen detect circuit configured to monitor the operation of the display pipe and/or the output frames to detect the static content.Type: GrantFiled: March 26, 2013Date of Patent: October 6, 2015Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Brijesh Tripathi, Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo
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Patent number: 9117299Abstract: A system and method for efficiently scheduling memory access requests from a display controller pipeline. The display controller monitors the amount of data in the line buffers in the internal pixel-processing pipelines. The display controller waits until the amount of data in a given line buffer has fallen below an amount equal to the pixel width of the region being rendered by the internal pixel-processing pipeline before issuing memory requests to the memory controller. When the memory controller is not processing received memory requests, the memory controller transitions to a low-power state.Type: GrantFiled: May 8, 2013Date of Patent: August 25, 2015Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Albert C. Kuo, Peter F. Holland
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Patent number: 9058676Abstract: In an embodiment, a display pipe is configured to composite one or more frames of images and/or video sequences to generate output frames for display. Additionally, the display pipe may be configured to compress an output frame and write the compressed frame to memory responsive to detecting static content in the output frames. The display pipe may also be configured to read the compressed frame from memory for display instead of reading the frames for compositing and display. In some embodiments, the display pipe may include an idle screen detect circuit configured to monitor the operation of the display pipe and/or the output frames to detect the static content.Type: GrantFiled: March 26, 2013Date of Patent: June 16, 2015Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Brijesh Tripathi, Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo
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Patent number: 8989509Abstract: In an embodiment, a compression unit is provided which may perform compression of a pixel stream. Similarly, a decompression unit may be provided which may decompress the compressed pixel stream. The compression and decompression units may include a streaming wavelet transform, which may perform the wavelet transform through a pipeline of wavelet operations. Each section of the pipeline may perform a pass of the wavelet transform on the pixel stream, and the section may provide input to another section of the pipeline that performs a next pass of the wavelet transform. The transform may thus be performed on the fly as the pixels are received.Type: GrantFiled: December 18, 2012Date of Patent: March 24, 2015Assignee: Apple Inc.Inventors: Albert C. Kuo, Jeffrey E. Frederiksen, Michael Frank
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Publication number: 20150070365Abstract: Embodiments of an apparatus and method are disclosed that may allow for arbitrating multiple read requests to fetch pixel data from a memory. The apparatus may include a first and a second processing pipeline, and a control unit. Each of the processing pipelines may be configured to generate a plurality of read requests to fetch a respective one of a plurality of portions of stored pixel data. The control unit may be configured to determine a priority for each read request dependent upon display coordinates of one or more pixels corresponding to each of the plurality of portions of stored pixel data, and determine an order for the plurality of read requests dependent upon the determined priority for each read request.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 6, 2013Publication date: March 12, 2015Applicant: Apple Inc.Inventors: Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo, Hao Chen
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Publication number: 20140333643Abstract: A system and method for efficiently scheduling memory access requests from a display controller pipeline. The display controller monitors the amount of data in the line buffers in the internal pixel-processing pipelines. The display controller waits until the amount of data in a given line buffer has fallen below an amount equal to the pixel width of the region being rendered by the internal pixel-processing pipeline before issuing memory requests to the memory controller. When the memory controller is not processing received memory requests, the memory controller transitions to a low-power state.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 8, 2013Publication date: November 13, 2014Applicant: Apple Inc.Inventors: Albert C. Kuo, Peter F. Holland
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Publication number: 20140292787Abstract: In an embodiment, a display pipe is configured to composite one or more frames of images and/or video sequences to generate output frames for display. Additionally, the display pipe may be configured to compress an output frame and write the compressed frame to memory responsive to detecting static content in the output frames is detected. The display pipe may also be configured to read the compressed frame from memory for display instead of reading the frames for compositing and display. In some embodiments, the display pipe may include an idle screen detect circuit configured to monitor the operation of the display pipe and/or the output frames to detect the static content.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 26, 2013Publication date: October 2, 2014Applicant: Apple Inc.Inventors: Brijesh Tripathi, Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo
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Publication number: 20140292788Abstract: In an embodiment, a display pipe is configured to composite one or more frames of images and/or video sequences to generate output frames for display. Additionally, the display pipe may be configured to compress an output frame and write the compressed frame to memory responsive to detecting static content in the output frames is detected. The display pipe may also be configured to read the compressed frame from memory for display instead of reading the frames for compositing and display. In some embodiments, the display pipe may include an idle screen detect circuit configured to monitor the operation of the display pipe and/or the output frames to detect the static content.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 26, 2013Publication date: October 2, 2014Applicant: Apple Inc.Inventors: Brijesh Tripathi, Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo
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Publication number: 20140237195Abstract: A system and method for efficient dynamic utilization of shared resources. A computing system includes a shared data structure accessed by multiple requestors. Both indications of access requests and indices pointing to entries within the data structure are stored in storage buffers. Each storage buffer maintains at a selected end an oldest stored indication of an access request from a respective requestor. Each storage buffer stores information for the respective requestor in an in-order contiguous manner beginning at the selected end. The indices stored in a given storage buffer are updated responsive to allocating new data or deallocating stored data in the shared data structure. Entries in a storage buffer are deallocated in any order and remaining entries are collapsed toward the selected end to eliminate gaps left by the deallocated entry.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 20, 2013Publication date: August 21, 2014Applicant: APPLE INC.Inventors: Peter F. Holland, Hao Chen, Albert C. Kuo
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Publication number: 20140169693Abstract: In an embodiment, a compression unit is provided which may perform compression of a pixel stream. Similarly, a decompression unit may be provided which may decompress the compressed pixel stream. The compression and decompression units may include a streaming wavelet transform, which may perform the wavelet transform through a pipeline of wavelet operations. Each section of the pipeline may perform a pass of the wavelet transform on the pixel stream, and the section may provide input to another section of the pipeline that performs a next pass of the wavelet transform. The transform may thus be performed on the fly as the pixels are received.Type: ApplicationFiled: December 18, 2012Publication date: June 19, 2014Applicant: APPLE INC.Inventors: Albert C. Kuo, Jeffrey E. Frederiksen, Michael Frank
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Publication number: 20140089604Abstract: A system and method for efficient dynamic utilization of shared resources. A computing system includes a shared buffer accessed by two requestors generating access requests. Any entry within the shared buffer may be allocated for use by a first requestor or a second requestor. The storage buffer stores received indications of access requests from the first requestor beginning at a first end of the storage buffer. The storage buffer stores received indications of access requests from the second requestor beginning at a second end of the storage buffer. The storage buffer maintains an oldest stored indication of an access request for the first requestor at the first end and an oldest stored indication of an access request for the second requestor at the second end. The shared buffer deallocates in-order of age from oldest to youngest allocated entries corresponding to a given requestor of the first requestor and the second requestor.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 27, 2012Publication date: March 27, 2014Applicant: APPLE INC.Inventors: Peter F. Holland, Albert C. Kuo, Joseph P. Bratt