Abstract: An apparatus such as a graphics processing unit (GPU) includes shader engines and front end (FE) circuits. Subsets of the FE circuits are configured to schedule commands for execution on corresponding subsets of the shader engines. The apparatus also includes a set of physical paths configured to convey information from the FE circuits to a memory via the shader engines. Subsets of the physical paths are allocated to the subsets of the FE circuits and the corresponding subsets of the shader engines. The apparatus further includes a scheduler configured to receive a reconfiguration request and modify the set of physical paths based on the reconfiguration request. In some cases, the reconfiguration request is provided by a central processing unit (CPU) that requests the modification based on characteristics of applications generating the commands.

Abstract: A system and method for efficiently processing memory requests are described. A computing system includes multiple compute units, multiple caches of a memory hierarchy and a communication fabric. A compute unit generates a memory access request that misses in a higher level cache, which sends a miss request to a lower level shared cache. During servicing of the miss request, the lower level cache merges identification information of multiple memory access requests targeting a same cache line from multiple compute units into a merged memory access response. The lower level shared cache continues to insert information into the merged memory access response until the lower level shared cache is ready to issue the merged memory access response. An intermediate router in the communication fabric broadcasts the merged memory access response into multiple memory access responses to send to corresponding compute units.

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: Described herein is a system and method for multiplexer tree (muxtree) indexing. Muxtree indexing performs hashing and row reduction in parallel by use of at least one bit in a lookup address at least once in a particular path of the muxtree. The muxtree indexing generates a different final index as compared to conventional hashed indexing but still results in a fair hash, where all table entries get used with equal distribution with uniformly random selects.

Abstract: An integrated circuit includes a network on chip (NOC) that includes a plurality of processing elements and a plurality of NOC nodes, interconnected to the plurality of processing elements. The integrated circuit includes logic that is configured to: increment by one, a virtual channel identifier to produce an incremented destination VC identifier, the virtual channel (VC) identifier associated with at least portion of a packet stored in at least one virtual channel buffer; determine that a destination virtual channel buffer corresponding to the incremented destination VC identifier in a destination NOC node in the NOC is available to store the portion of the packet; and in response to the determination, send the portion of the packet and the incremented destination VC identifier to the destination NOC node.

Abstract: Temporal link encoding, including: identifying a data type of a data value to be transmitted; determining that the data type is included in one or more data types for temporal encoding; and transmitting the data value using temporal encoding.

Abstract: A technique for accessing a memory having a high latency portion and a low latency portion is provided. The technique includes detecting a promotion trigger to promote data from the high latency portion to the low latency portion, in response to the promotion trigger, copying cache lines associated with the promotion trigger from the high latency portion to the low latency portion, and in response to a read request, providing data from either or both of the high latency portion or the low latency portion, based on a state associated with data in the high latency portion and the low latency portion.

Abstract: An apparatus such as a graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a plurality of processing elements configured to concurrently execute a plurality of first waves and accumulators associated with the plurality of processing elements. The accumulators are configured to store accumulated values representative of behavioral characteristics of the plurality of first waves that are concurrently executing on the plurality of processing elements. The apparatus also includes a dispatcher configured to dispatch second waves to the plurality of processing elements based on comparisons of values representative of behavioral characteristics of the second waves and the accumulated values stored in the accumulators. In some cases, the behavioral characteristics of the plurality of first waves comprise at least one of fetch bandwidths, usage of an arithmetic logic unit (ALU), and number of export operations.

Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing beamforming techniques to choose transceivers in a wireless mesh network are disclosed. Multiple transceivers are deployed in a wireless virtual reality (VR) environment to provide a high quality path to send an encoded video stream from a graphics source to a head-mounted display (HMD) receiver. When a master transceiver connected to the graphics source does not have a line of sight connection to the HMD, the master transmitter sends the encoded video stream on a path though one or more passive transceivers that have good line of sight connections on the path to the HMD. To determine the quality of the wireless links between the various transceivers and the HMD, beamforming training procedures are performed. These beamforming training procedures are implemented to determine how to route the encoded video stream from the master transceiver to the HMD.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for compressing data. The techniques include identifying, in data to be compressed, a first set of values, wherein the first set of values include a first number of two or more consecutive identical non-zero values; including, in compressed data, a first control value indicating the first number of non-zero values and a first data item corresponding to the consecutive identical non-zero values; identifying, in the data to be compressed, a second value having an exponent value included in a defined set of exponent values; including, in the compressed data, a second control value indicating the exponent value and a second data item corresponding to a portion of the second value other than the exponent value; and including, in the compressed data, a third control value indicating a third set of one or more consecutive zero values in the data to be compressed.

Abstract: Techniques for performing ray tracing for a ray are provided. The techniques include, based on first traversal of a bounding volume hierarchy, identifying a first memory page that is classified as resident, obtaining a first portion of the bounding volume hierarchy associated with the first memory page, traversing the first portion of the bounding volume hierarchy according to a ray intersection test, based on second traversal of the bounding volume hierarchy, identifying a second memory page that is classified as valid and non-resident, and in response to the second memory page being classified as valid and non-resident, determining that a miss occurs for each node of the bounding volume hierarchy within the second memory page.

Abstract: A memory controller includes a command queue, a memory interface queue, and a non-volatile error reporting circuit. The command queue receives memory access commands including volatile reads, volatile writes, non-volatile reads, and non-volatile writes, and an output. The memory interface queue has an input coupled to the output of the command queue, and an output for coupling to a non-volatile storage class memory (SCM) module. The non-volatile error reporting circuit identifies error conditions associated with the non-volatile SCM module and maps the error conditions from a first number of possible error conditions associated with the non-volatile SCM module to a second, smaller number of virtual error types for reporting to an error monitoring module of a host operating system, the mapping based at least on a classification that the error condition will or will not have a deleterious effect on an executable process running on the host operating system.

Abstract: A technique for classifying a ray tracing intersection with a triangle edge or vertex avoids either rendering holes or multiple hits of the same ray for different triangles. The technique employs a tie-breaking scheme in which certain types of edges are classified as hits and certain types of edges are classified as misses. The test is performed in a coordinate space that comprises a projection into the viewspace of the ray, and thus where the ray direction has a non-zero magnitude in one axis (e.g., z) but a zero magnitude in the two other axes. In this coordinate space, edges are classified as one of top, bottom, left, and right, and an intersection on an edge counts as a hit if the intersection hits a top or left edge, but a miss if the intersection hits a bottom or right edge. Vertices are processed in a related manner.

Abstract: A first processor is configured to detect migration of a page from a second memory associated with a second processor to a first memory associated with the first processor or to detect duplication of the page in the first memory and the second memory. The first processor implements a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) and the first processor is configured to insert an entry in the TLB in response to the duplication or the migration of the page. The entry maps a virtual address of the page to a physical address in the first memory and the entry is inserted into the TLB without modifying a corresponding entry in a page table that maps the virtual address of the page to a physical address in the second memory. In some cases, a duplicate translation table (DTT) stores a copy of the entry that is accessed in response to a TLB miss.

Abstract: Various semiconductor chips with gettering regions and methods of making the same are disclosed. In one aspect, an apparatus is provided that includes a semiconductor chip that has a first side and a second side opposite the first side. The first side has a plurality of laser ablation craters. Each of the ablation craters has a bottom. A gettering region is in the semiconductor chip beneath the laser ablation craters. The gettering region includes plural structural defects. At least some of the structural defects emanate from at least some of the bottoms of the laser ablation craters.

Abstract: Methods and systems are described. A system includes a redundant shader pipe array that performs rendering calculations on data provided thereto and a shader pipe array that includes a plurality of shader pipes, each of which performs rendering calculations on data provided thereto. The system also includes a circuit that identifies a defective shader pipe of the plurality of shader pipes in the shader pipe array. In response to identifying the defective shader pipe, the circuit generates a signal. The system also includes a redundant shader switch. The redundant shader switch receives the generated signal, and, in response to receiving the generated signal, transfers the data for the defective shader pipe to the redundant shader pipe array.

Abstract: The address of the draw or dispatch packet responsible for creating an exception is tied to a shader/wavefront back to the draw command from which it originated. In various embodiments, a method of operating a graphics pipeline and exception handling includes receiving, at a command processor of a graphics processing unit (GPU), an exception signal indicating an occurrence of a pipeline exception at a shader stage of a graphics pipeline. The shader stage generates an exception signal in response to a pipeline exception and transmits the exception signal to the command processor. The command processor determines, based on the exception signal, an address of a command packet responsible for the occurrence of the pipeline exception.

Abstract: An approach is provided for implementing memory profiling aggregation. A hardware aggregator provides memory profiling aggregation by controlling the execution of a plurality of hardware profilers that monitor memory performance in a system. For each hardware profiler of the plurality of hardware profilers, a hardware counter value is compared to a threshold value. When a threshold value is satisfied, execution of a respective hardware profiler of the plurality of hardware profilers is initiated to monitor memory performance. Multiple hardware profilers of the plurality of hardware profilers may execute concurrently and each generate a result counter value. The result counter values generated by each hardware profiler of the plurality of hardware profilers are aggregated to generate an aggregate result counter value. The aggregate result counter value is stored in memory that is accessible by a software processes for use in optimizing memory-management policy decisions.

Abstract: A system and method for controlling characteristics of collected image data are disclosed. The system and method include performing pre-processing of an image using GPUs, configuring an optic based on the pre-processing, the configuring being designed to account for features of the pre-processed image, acquiring an image using the configured optic, processing the acquired image using GPUs, and determining if the processed acquired image accounts for feature of the pre-processed image, and the determination is affirmative, outputting the image, wherein if the determination is negative repeating the configuring of the optic and re-acquiring the image.

Abstract: A rendering processor assigns varying logical pixel dimensions to regions of an image frame and rendering pixels of the image frame based on the logical pixel dimensions. The rendering processor renders in highest resolution (i.e., with smaller logical pixel dimensions) those areas of the image that are more important (on which the viewer is expected to focus (the “foveal region”), or regions with little-to-no motion), and renders in lower resolution (i.e., with larger logical pixel dimensions) those areas of the image outside the region of interest, or regions that are speedily moving, so that loss of detail in those regions will be less noticeable to the viewer. For regions with less detail or greater magnitude of motion, larger logical pixel dimensions reduce the computational workload without affecting the quality of the displayed graphics as perceived by a user.