Abstract: Various semiconductor chip metallization layers and methods of manufacturing the same are disclosed. In aspect, a semiconductor chip is provided that includes a substrate, plural metallization layers on the substrate, a first conductor line in one of the metallization layers and a second conductor line in the one of the metallization layers in spaced apart relation to the first conductor line, each of the first conductor line and the second conductor line has a first line portion and a second line portion stacked on the first line portion, and a dielectric layer that has a portion positioned between the first conductor line and a second line, the portion has an air gap.

Abstract: A method of tiled rendering of an image for display is provided which comprises receiving an image comprising one or more three dimensional (3D) objects and executing a visibility pass for determining locations of primitives of the image. The method also comprises executing, concurrently with the executing of the visibility pass, front end geometry processing of one of the primitives determined, from the visibility pass, to be in a first one of a plurality of tiles of the image and executing, concurrently with the executing of the visibility pass, back end processing of the one primitive in the first tile.

Abstract: Various circuit board embodiments are disclosed. In one aspect, an apparatus is provided that includes a circuit board and a first phase change material pocket positioned on or in the circuit board and contacting a surface of the circuit board.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for managing processor functionality includes receiving, by the processor, data relating to one or more environmental conditions. The processor compares the data to pre-existing parameters to determine whether or not the environmental conditions are within the pre-existing parameters for normal operation. If the data are within the pre-existing parameters for normal operation, the processor is operated in a normal operation mode. If the data are outside the pre-existing parameters for normal operation, the processor operates in a second operation mode which is dynamically determined and calibrated during power-on, boot and operation.

Abstract: Various semiconductor chip packages are disclosed. In one aspect, a semiconductor chip package is provided that includes a fan-out redistribution layer (RDL) structure that has plural stacked polymer layers, plural metallization layers, plural conductive vias interconnecting adjacent metallization layers of the metallization layers, and plural rivets configured to resist delamination of one or more of the polymer layers. Each of the plural rivets includes a first head, a second head and a shank connected between the first head and the second head. The first head is part of one of the metallization layers. The shank includes at least one of the conductive vias and at least one part of another of the metallization layers.

Abstract: A frustum bounds a subset of rays projected into a virtual scene to be rendered. The frustum is transformed from a Cartesian coordinate space to a spherical coordinate space using a transform matrix that places a central ray of the frustum as the Z-axis. A projection hemisphere centered around the central ray is defined. The extents of the intersection of the transformed frustum and the surface of the projection hemisphere are bound by a frustum circle. A geometric object in the scene or a bounding volume is bound by a bounding sphere, which is transformed into the spherical coordinate system using the transform matrix, and then projected onto the surface of the projection sphere to define a bounding circle. The frustum is identified as intersecting the geometric object or bounding volume responsive to angular overlap and distance overlap between the frustum circle and the bounding circle.

Abstract: A method for performing read training of a memory channel includes writing a data pattern to a memory using a data bus having a predetermined number of bit lanes. An edge of a read data eye is determined individually for each bit lane by reading the data pattern over the data bus using a read bust cycle having a predetermined length, grouping data received on each bit lane over the read burst cycle to form a bit lane data group, and comparing the bit lane data group to corresponding expected data of the data pattern for each bit lane, logging a phase of each bit lane on which said edge is found, and repeating the reading, grouping, comparing, and logging until the edge is found for all of the bit lanes.

Abstract: In some embodiments, a memory controller in a processor includes a base value cache, a compressor, and a metadata cache. The compressor is coupled to the base value cache and the metadata cache. The compressor compresses a data block using at least a base value and delta values. The compressor determines whether the size of the data block exceeds a data block threshold value. Based on the determination of whether the size of the compressed data block generated by the compressor exceeds the data block threshold value, the memory controller transfers only a set of the compressed delta values to memory for storage. A decompressor located in the lower level cache of the processor decompresses the compressed data block using the base value stored in the base value cache, metadata stored in the metadata cache and the delta values stored in memory.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for executing wavefronts. The techniques include at a first time for issuing instructions for execution, performing first identifying, including identifying that sufficient processing resources exist to execute a first set of instructions together within a processing lane; in response to the first identifying, executing the first set of instructions together; at a second time for issuing instructions for execution, performing second identifying, including identifying that no instructions are available for which sufficient processing resources exist for execution together within the processing lane; and in response to the second identifying, executing an instruction independently of any other instruction.

Abstract: An integrated circuit (IC) includes a first circuit including a timer for receiving an adjustable clock signal. Responsive to leaving the non-operational power state to enter a power state in which the adjustable clock has a lower frequency than the reference clock, the first circuit adjusts the frequency of the adjustable clock to a frequency higher than the lower frequency, and then receives an elapsed time associated with the non-operational power state and starts the timer using an adjusted timer value.

Abstract: A memory module includes logic elements that are configurable to a particular ECC implementation. As used herein, the term “ECC implementation” refers to ECC functionality for performing error detection and subsequent processing, for example using the results of the error detection to perform error correction and to encode data such that any errors can be later identified and corrected. The approach allows a memory module or computing device to be configured to a specific ECC implementation without requiring requests to be sent back and forth between a host.

Abstract: A processor core executes a first process. The first process is associated with a first context tag that is generated based on context information controlled by an operating system or hypervisor of the processing system. A branch prediction structure selectively provides the processor core with access to an entry in the branch prediction structure based on the first context tag and a second context tag associated with the entry. The branch prediction structure selectively provides the processor core with access to the entry in response to the first process executing a branch instruction. Tagging entries in the branch prediction structure reduces, or eliminates, aliasing between information used to predict branches taken by different processes at a branch instruction.

Abstract: A processor includes a task scheduling unit and a compute unit coupled to the task scheduling unit. The task scheduling unit performs a task dependency assessment of a task dependency graph and task data requirements that correspond to each task of the plurality of tasks. Based on the task dependency assessment, the task scheduling unit schedules a first task of the plurality of tasks and a second proxy object of a plurality of proxy objects specified by the task data requirements such that a memory transfer of the second proxy object of the plurality of proxy objects occurs while the first task is being executed.

Abstract: A data processing platform, method, and program product perform compression and decompression of a set of data items. Suffix data and a prefix are selected for each respective data item in the set of data items based on data content of the respective data item. The set of data items is sorted based on the prefixes. The prefixes are encoded by querying multiple encoding tables to create a code word containing compressed information representing values of all prefixes for the set of data items. The code word and suffix data for each of the data items are stored in memory. The code word is decompressed to recover the prefixes. The recovered prefixes are paired with their respective suffix data.

Abstract: A processing system includes a first set of one or more processing units including a first processing unit, a second set of one or more processing units including a second processing unit, and a memory having an address space shared by the first and second sets. The processing system further includes a distributed coherence directory subsystem having a first coherence directory to support a first subset of one or more address regions of the address space and a second coherence directory to support a second subset of one or more address regions of the address space. In some implementations, the first coherence directory is implemented in the system so as to have a lower access latency for the first set, whereas the second coherence directory is implemented in the system so as to have a lower access latency for the second set.

Abstract: A processor includes a micro-operation cache having a plurality of micro-operation cache entries for storing micro-operations decoded from instruction groups and a micro-operation filter having a plurality of micro-operation filter table entries for storing identifiers of instruction groups for which the micro-operations are predicted dead on fill if stored in the micro-operation cache. The micro-operation filter receives an identifier for an instruction group. The micro-operation filter then prevents a copy of the micro-operations from the first instruction group from being stored in the micro-operation cache when a micro-operation filter table entry includes an identifier that matches the first identifier.

Abstract: Described is a method and apparatus for application migration between a dockable device and a docking station in a seamless manner. The dockable device includes a processor and the docking station includes a high-performance processor. The method includes determining a docking state of a dockable device while at least an application is running. Application migration from the dockable device to a docking station is initiated when the dockable device is moving to a docked state. Application migration from the docking station to the dockable device is initiated when the dockable device is moving to an undocked state. The application continues to run during the application migration from the dockable device to the docking station or during the application migration from the docking station to the dockable device.

Abstract: In some examples, thermal aware optimization logic determines a characteristic (e.g., a workload or type) of a wavefront (e.g., multiple threads). For example, the characteristic indicates whether the wavefront is compute intensive, memory intensive, mixed, and/or another type of wavefront. The thermal aware optimization logic determines temperature information for one or more compute units (CUs) in one or more processing cores. The temperature information includes predictive thermal information indicating expected temperatures corresponding to the one or more CUs and historical thermal information indicating current or past thermal temperatures of at least a portion of a graphics processing unit (GPU). The logic selects the one or more compute units to process the plurality of threads based on the determined characteristic and the temperature information. The logic provides instructions to the selected subset of the plurality of CUs to execute the wavefront.

Abstract: Dynamically coalescing atomic memory operations for memory-local computing is disclosed. In an embodiment, it is determined whether a first atomic memory access and a second atomic memory access are candidates for coalescing. In response to a triggering event, the atomic memory accesses that are candidates for coalescing are coalesced in a cache prior to requesting memory-local processing by a memory-local compute unit. The atomic memory accesses may be coalesced in the same cache line or atomic memory accesses in different cache lines may be coalesced using a multicast memory-local processing command.

Abstract: A method includes recording a first set of consecutive memory access deltas, where each of the consecutive memory access deltas represents a difference between two memory addresses accessed by an application, updating values in a prefetch training table based on the first set of memory access deltas, and predicting one or more memory addresses for prefetching responsive to a second set of consecutive memory access deltas and based on values in the prefetch training table.