Abstract: In a particular implementation, a circuit comprises: a first branch comprising a first transistor, where the first branch is configured to generate a first voltage; a second branch comprising a second transistor, where the second branch is configured to generate a second voltage; and a comparator configured to generate an output signal based on a comparison of the first and second voltages. Also, the output signal may be configured to regulate an output voltage of one or more negative charge pump circuits coupled to the circuit.

Abstract: Processing circuitry performs data processing operations in response to instructions fetched from a cache or memory or micro-operations decoded from the instructions. Sampling circuitry selects a subset of instructions or micro-operations as sampled operations to be profiled. Profiling circuitry captures, in response to processing of an instruction or micro-operation selected as a sampled operation, a sample record specifying an operation type of the sampled operation and information about behaviour of the sampled operation which is directly attributed to the sampled operation. The profiling circuitry can include, in the sample record for a sampled operation corresponding to a given instruction, a reference instruction address indicator indicative of an address of a reference instruction appearing earlier or later in program order than the given instruction, for which control flow is sequential between any instructions occurring between the reference instruction and the given instruction in program order.

Abstract: An apparatus has a data storage structure to store data items tagged by respective tag values and stores, in association with each data item, a respective tag group identifier to identify other data items having a same tag value within a collection of data items. The apparatus also has tag match circuitry to identify one or more hitting data items. Prioritisation circuitry is provided to select candidate data items which, relative to any other data items in the particular collection of data items having the same tag group identifier as the selected candidate data item is favoured according to an ordering of the data items. The prioritisation circuitry selects the one or more candidate data items before the identification of the hitting data items is available from the tag match circuitry. Data item selection circuitry selects a candidate data item for which the tag match circuitry detected a match.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method of evaluating trigonometric functions in floating point arithmetic. In particular, a range reduction operation is performed to reduce the input argument x into a desired reduced ranges of values within which the trigonometric function is to be evaluated. The range reduction involves a step of computing the product of the input argument x and R, wherein R is an approximation to m/pi (with m=2, for example). The value for R is obtained as a sum of terms R0+R1+ . . . and the value of the first term R0 is configured to ensure that the expression xR0 modulo 4 can be evaluated without floating point rounding error. This can then provide an improved graphics processor operation.

Abstract: Memory management circuitry (28) supports two-stage address translation based on a stage-1 and stage-2 translation table structures. Stage-2 access permission information specified by a stage-2 translation table entry has an encoding specifying whether a corresponding memory region has a partially-read-only permission indicating that write requests to the memory region corresponding to the target intermediate address, issued when processing circuitry (4) is in a predetermined execution state, are permitted for a restricted subset of write request types (including metadata-updating write requests for updating access tracking metadata in translation table entries) but prohibited for other write request types.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a graphics processor comprising: storage; execution circuitry to execute programs to perform graphics processing operations using a ray tracing process to generate a render output representative of a view of a scene; and ray tracing circuitry to trace a ray by performing tests to determine whether the ray may intersect geometry in the scene, the ray tracing circuitry being configured to store one or more test record entries for a ray being traced in the storage, each test record entry being indicative of a test to be performed to trace the ray, wherein the ray tracing circuitry is further configured to store distance data respective of one or more test record entries, the distance data respective of a test record entry being data representative of a distance to a volume of the scene associated with the test record entry.

Abstract: There is provided an apparatus, medium and method for cache invalidation. The apparatus comprises a cache having a plurality of entries grouped into a plurality of entry sets. Each entry of the plurality of entries identifies an address range having one of a plurality of predetermined address range sizes. The apparatus further comprises cache invalidation circuitry responsive to a cache invalidation request indicating an address invalidation range to trigger invalidation of entries in the cache that overlap the address invalidation range. The cache invalidation circuitry is configured to operate in one of a plurality of invalidation modes based on the address invalidation range and cache occupancy information indicating address range sizes identified by the plurality of entries in the cache.

Abstract: Example methods, apparatuses, and/or articles of manufacture are disclosed that may be implemented, in whole or in part, techniques to process pixel values sampled from a multi color channel imaging device. In particular, methods and/or techniques to process pixel samples for interpolating pixel values for one or more color channels.

Abstract: Instruction decoder to decode processing instructions; one or more first registers; first processing circuitry to execute the decoded processing instructions in a first processing mode and configured to execute the decoded processing instructions using the one or more first registers; and control circuitry to execute the decoded processing instructions in a second processing mode using one or more second registers; the instruction decoder being configured to decode processing instructions selected from a first instruction set and a second instruction set in the second processing mode, in which one or both of the first and second instruction sets comprises at least one unique instruction set; the instruction decoder configured to decode one or more mode change instructions to change between the first and second processing mode; and the first processing circuitry configured to change the current processing mode between the first and second processing mode responding to executing mode change instruction.

Abstract: A system on chip (102) comprising a plurality of logically homogeneous processor cores (104), each processor core comprising processing circuitry (210) to execute tasks allocated to that processor core, and task scheduling circuitry (202) configured to allocate tasks to the plurality of processor cores. The task scheduling circuitry is configured, for a given task to be allocated, to determine, based on at least one physical circuit implementation property associated with a given processor core, whether the given task is allocated to the given processor core.

Abstract: A graphics processor operable to render frames that represent a view of a scene using a ray tracing process includes a ray tracing circuit operable to test rays against a ray tracing acceleration data structure for a ray tracing process. The ray tracing circuit comprises a ray testing circuit operable to perform ray intersection tests for nodes of a ray tracing acceleration data structure and storage local to the ray testing circuit for storing data representative of one or more nodes of a ray tracing acceleration data structure for use by the ray testing circuit. Rays for testing by the ray testing circuit are selected from a pool of one or more rays to be tested based on an indication of the ray tracing acceleration data structure node or nodes that have been stored in the local storage of the ray testing circuit.

Abstract: Smart labels, methods of operating smart labels, and associated contexts in which such smart labels may be used are disclosed. The smart label, for use in conjunction with consumer product packaging, comprises an energy harvester to capture ambient energy to provide a source of electrical energy and electronic circuitry powered by the electrical energy. A fuse provides an electrical connection between the energy harvester and the electronic circuitry and destruction of the fuse permanently disconnects the energy harvester from the electronic circuitry. Unnecessary continued operation of the electronic circuitry powered by the energy harvester can therefore be prevented, for example when the consumer product packaging is disposed of or recycled, which may be an undesirable heat source. Smart labelling, and a connected network of smart bins which can read the smart labelling, may also be used to promote consumer recycling of consumer product packaging.

Abstract: A method comprising obtaining first, real, data to be processed. It is determined, based on a number of computation resources of a set of computation resources of a processing unit available for use during a processing cycle, to process at least a portion of the first data using a first subset of the set and to load second, artificial, data into a second subset of the set, disjoint from the first subset of the set, the second data comprising at least one artificial data element. In a processing cycle, at least the portion of the first data and the second data are loaded into first and second subsets of the set, respectively. The second subset is an artificially activated subset. The second data is inhibited from affecting output feature map data, which is generated based at least in part on the computational result.

Abstract: A data processing apparatus and method having processing circuitry, and trace circuitry having a trace buffer; write pointer storage, and a call depth counter, wherein the trace circuitry generates trace data processing first event activities: modify the call depth counter in a first direction, store first trace data indicative of the first event, and modify the write pointer to point to a next location in the trace buffer; in response to a second event, when the call depth counter is not equal to a threshold call depth, to: modify the call depth counter direction and the write pointer to point to a previous location in the trace buffer; and in response to the second event, when the call depth counter is equal to the threshold call depth, to store second trace data indicative of the second event in the trace buffer at the current location.

Abstract: A data processing apparatus comprises: a physical register array, prediction circuitry, register rename circuitry, and hardware execution circuitry. The physical register array comprises a plurality of sectors having one or more different access properties, each of the plurality of sectors having one or more different access properties compared to other sectors of the plurality of sectors, each sector of the plurality of sectors comprising at least one physical register. The prediction circuitry to predict, for a given instruction, a sector identifier identifying one of the sectors of the physical register array to be used for a destination register of the given instruction. The prediction circuitry is configured to select the sector identifier in dependence on prediction information learnt from performance monitoring information indicative of performance achieved for a sequence of instructions when using different sector identifiers for the given instruction.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided having pointer storage to store pointer values for a plurality of pointers, with the pointer values of the pointers being differentially incremented in response to a series of increment events. Tracker circuitry maintains a plurality of tracker entries, each tracker entry identifying a control flow instruction and a current active pointer (from amongst the pointers) to be associated with that control flow instruction. Cache circuitry maintains a plurality of cache entries, each cache entry storing a resolved behaviour of an instance of a control flow instruction identified by a tracker entry along with an associated tag value generated when the resolved behaviour was allocated into that cache entry. For a given entry the associated tag value may be generated in dependence on an address indication of the control flow instruction whose resolved behaviour is being stored in that entry and the current active pointer associated with that control flow instruction.

Abstract: Data storage circuitry has entries to store data according to a data storage technology supporting non-destructive reads, each entry associated with an error checking code (ECC) and age indication. Scrubbing circuitry performs a patrol scrubbing cycle to visit each entry of the data storage circuitry within a scrubbing period. On a given visit to a given entry, the scrubbing operation comprises determining, based on the age indication associated with the given entry, whether a check-not-required period has elapsed for the given entry, and if so performing an error check on the data of the given entry using the ECC for that entry. The error check is omitted if the check-not-required period has not yet elapsed. The check-not-required period is restarted for a write target entry in response to a request causing an update to the data and the error checking code of the write target entry.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product configured to control a plurality of parallel programs operating in an n-dimensional hierarchical iteration space over an n-dimensional data space, comprising: a processor and a memory configured to accommodate the plurality of parallel programs and the data space; a memory access control decoder configured to decode memory location references to regions of the n-dimensional data space from indices in the plurality of parallel programs; and an execution orchestrator responsive to the memory access control decoder and configured to sequence regions of the n-dimensional hierarchical iteration space of the plurality of parallel programs to honour a data requirement of at least a first of the plurality of parallel programs having a data dependency on at least a second of the plurality of parallel programs.

Abstract: A data processing apparatus is provided which controls the use of data in respect of a further operation. The data processing apparatus identifies whether data is trusted or untrusted by identifying whether or not the data was determined by a speculatively executed resolve-pending operation. A permission control unit is also provided to control how the data can be used in respect of a further operation according to a security policy while the speculatively executed operation is still resolve-pending.

Abstract: An apparatus is provided for controlling the operating mode of control circuitry, such that the control circuitry may change between two operating modes. In an allocation mode, data that is loaded in response to an instruction is allocated into storage circuitry from an intermediate buffer, and the data is read from the storage circuitry. In a non-allocation mode, the data is not allocated to the storage circuitry, and is read directly from intermediate buffer. The control of the operating mode may be performed by mode control circuitry, and the mode may be changed in dependence on the type of instruction that calls the data, and whether the data may be used again in the near future, or whether it is expected to be used only once.