Abstract: High-resolution switched digital regulators are disclosed having fast cross corner and variable temperature response, with constrained ripple. The strength of the power transistors utilized by the regulator are adjusted to control the current delivered to the load. The regulators utilize a slow control loop in parallel with a primary fast switching loop. The slow loop uses the switching signal of the primary loop to estimate the load current and set the power transistor size accordingly.

Abstract: Systems and methods that facilitate efficient and effective shadow image generation are presented. In one embodiment, a hard shadow generation system comprises a compute shader, pixel shader and graphics shader. The compute shader is configured to retrieve pixel depth information and generate projection matrix information, wherein the generating includes performing dynamic re-projection from eye-space to light space utilizing the pixel depth information. The pixel shader is configured to create light space visibility information. The graphics shader is configured to perform frustum trace operations to produce hard shadow information, wherein the frustum trace operations utilize the light space visibility information. The light space visibility information can be considered irregular z information stored in an irregular z-buffer.

Abstract: A system for testing complex integrated circuits in the field using updated tests, test sequences, models, and test conditions such as voltage and clock frequencies, over the life cycle of the circuit.

Abstract: Segmentation is the identification of separate objects within an image. An example is identification of a pedestrian passing in front of a car, where the pedestrian is a first object and the car is a second object. Superpixel segmentation is the identification of regions of pixels within an object that have similar properties An example is identification of pixel regions having a similar color, such as different articles of clothing worn by the pedestrian and different components of the car. A pixel affinity neural network (PAN) model is trained to generate pixel affinity maps for superpixel segmentation. The pixel affinity map defines the similarity of two points in space. In an embodiment, the pixel affinity map indicates a horizontal affinity and vertical affinity for each pixel in the image. The pixel affinity map is processed to identify the superpixels.

Abstract: A receiver receives communications over a communication channel, which may distort an incoming communication signal. In order to counter this distortion, the frequency response of the receiver is manipulated by adjusting several frequency response parameters. Each frequency response parameter controls at least a portion of the frequency response of the receiver. The optimal values for the frequency response parameters are determined by modifying an initial set of values for the frequency response parameters through one or more of stochastic hill climbing operations until a performance metric associated with the receiver reaches a local maximum. The modified values are displaced through one or more mutation operations. The stochastic hill climbing operations may subsequently be performed on the mutated values to generate the final values for the frequency response parameters.

Abstract: In various embodiments, a finite aperture omni-directional camera is modeled by aligning a finite aperture lens and focal point with the omni-directional part of the projection. For example, each point on an image plane maps to a direction in camera space. For a spherical projection, the lens can be orientated along this direction and the focal point is picked along this direction at focal distance from the lens. For a cylindrical projection, the lens can be oriented along the projected direction on the two dimensional (2D) xz-plane, as the projection is not omni-directional in the y direction. The focal point is picked along the (unprojected) direction so its projection on the xz-plane is at focal distance from the lens. The final outgoing ray can be constructed by sampling of point on this oriented lens and shooting a ray from there through the focal point.

Abstract: A segmentation model is trained with an image reconstruction model that shares an encoding. During application of the segmentation model, the segmentation model may use the encoding and network layers trained for the segmentation without the image reconstruction model. The image reconstruction model may include a probabilistic representation of the image that represents the image based on a probability distribution. When training the model, the encoding layers of the model use a loss function including an error term from the segmentation model and from the autoencoder model. The image reconstruction model thus regularizes the encoding layers and improves modeling results and prevents overfitting, particularly for small training sizes.

Abstract: A circuit includes a first ring oscillator with a plurality of stages, each coupled via a voltage follower cross-coupling to a plurality of stages of a second ring oscillator. Further ring oscillators may be coupled to the first ring oscillator and the second ring oscillator. Additionally, the voltage follower cross-coupling for each of the stages may include one or more first voltage follower having a first strength, and one or more second voltage follower having a second strength different than the first strength.

Abstract: In various examples, the actual spatial properties of a virtual environment are used to produce, for a pixel, an anisotropic filter kernel for a filter having dimensions and weights that accurately reflect the spatial characteristics of the virtual environment. Geometry of the virtual environment may be computed based at least in part on a projection of a light source onto a surface through an occluder, in order to determine a footprint that reflects a contribution of the light source to lighting conditions of the pixel associated with a point on the surface. The footprint may define a size, orientation, and/or shape of the anisotropic filter kernel and corresponding filter weights. The anisotropic filter kernel may be applied to the pixel to produce a graphically-rendered image of the virtual environment.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention may be directed to a graphics system of a computer system. The system may include a frame buffer having a number of partitions respectively mapped to a number of discrete memory devices and a dedicated copy buffer operable to store new image frames, mapped to a first memory device. The first memory device corresponds to a first partition of the number of partitions. The system may also include a loader circuit coupled between the frame buffer and the dedicated copy buffer, operable to copy new image frames from the frame buffer to the dedicated copy buffer. The system may also include a clocked output coupled to receive an image frame from the dedicated copy buffer and operable to drive a display device therewith. The system may enter a low power state wherein a number of the discrete memory devices are powered off.

Abstract: A hardware-based traversal coprocessor provides acceleration of tree traversal operations searching for intersections between primitives represented in a tree data structure and a ray. The primitives may include opaque and alpha triangles used in generating a virtual scene. The hardware-based traversal coprocessor is configured to determine primitives intersected by the ray, and return intersection information to a streaming multiprocessor for further processing. The hardware-based traversal coprocessor is configured to provide a deterministic result of intersected triangles regardless of the order that the memory subsystem returns triangle range blocks for processing, while opportunistically eliminating alpha intersections that lie further along the length of the ray than closer opaque intersections.

Abstract: An apparatus for capturing digital stereoscopic images of a scene. The apparatus comprises a first pair of separated camera lens oriented such that a first imaginary line between the first pair of lens is substantially parallel with a horizon line a scene, wherein digital image data is capturable through the first pair of camera lens and storable in two separate digital image data bases corresponding to a left-eye horizontal view and a right-eye horizontal view respectively. The apparatus comprises a second pair of separated camera lens oriented such that a second imaginary line between the second pair of lens is substantially non-parallel with the horizon line, wherein digital image data is capturable through the second pair of camera lens and storable in two separate digital image data bases corresponding to a left-eye off-horizontal view and a right-eye off-horizontal view respectively.

Abstract: Systems and techniques for streaming video with dynamic jitter tolerance are described. In one example, a system includes a server executing an application and generating image frames associated with the application at a frame rate, and a client which displays the image frames on a display that has a predetermined refresh rate and which monitors arrival times of the image frames in relation to the predetermined refresh rate. The server is further configured to dynamically change the frame rate based on the monitoring so that the frame rate more closely corresponds to the predetermined refresh rate of the client's display.

Abstract: In various examples, recordings of gameplay sessions are enhanced by the application of special effects to relatively high(er) and/or low(er) interest durations of the gameplay sessions. Durations of relatively high(er) or low(er) predicted interest in a gameplay session are identified, for instance, based upon level of activity engaged in by a gamer during a particular gameplay session duration. Once identified, different variations of video characteristic(s) are applied to at least a portion of the identified durations for implementation during playback. The recordings may be generated and/or played back in real-time with a live gameplay session, or after completion of the gameplay session. Further, video data of the recordings themselves may be modified to include the special effects and/or indications of the durations and/or variations may be included in metadata and used for playback.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention includes a parallel processing unit (PPU) that performs pixel shading at variable granularities. For effects that vary at a low frequency across a pixel block, a coarse shading unit performs the associated shading operations on a subset of the pixels in the pixel block. By contrast, for effects that vary at a high frequency across the pixel block, fine shading units perform the associated shading operations on each pixel in the pixel block. Because the PPU implements coarse shading units and fine shading units, the PPU may tune the shading rate per-effect based on the frequency of variation across each pixel group. By contrast, conventional PPUs typically compute all effects per-pixel, performing redundant shading operations for low frequency effects. Consequently, to produce similar image quality, the PPU consumes less power and increases the rendering frame rate compared to a conventional PPU.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for sharing of data exchange among kernels (each a set of instructions) executing on a system having multiple processing units. In an embodiment, each processing unit includes an on-chip scratchpad memory that can be accessed by the kernels executing on the processing unit. All or a portion of the scratchpad memory can be allocated and configured, for example, such that the scratchpad is accessible to multiple kernels in parallel, to one or more kernels in serial, or a combination of both.

Abstract: A display controller within a display device includes a serial peripheral interface (SPI) that coordinates the updating of current settings for groups of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The SPI controller operates in synchrony with a liquid-crystal display (LCD) vertical scan position in order to update the current settings for rows of LEDs in parallel with the updating of nearby rows of LCD pixels. When updating a row of LEDs, the SPI controller executes one or more SPI transactions included in an SPI program to write current settings for multiple LEDs nearly simultaneously. A compiler generates the SPI program based on the topology of LEDs included in the display device.

Abstract: In a computing system, various components/devices communicate with each other. For example, a microprocessor may communicate with memory or may communicate with another microprocessor over a link. Various factors such as the frequency and transmission speed of a signal can distort what is being communicated over a link. The problem becomes more pronounced as the transmission speed increases. To address this problem, devices on both ends of a link can cooperate to equalize the link. Equalization involves configuring the transmitting device to alter the signal being transmitted so that certain distortions introduced during transmission are negated by the time the signal arrives at the receiving device. Given that each link can have slightly different characteristics, appropriate equalization parameters need to be ascertained for each link. Introduced herein are improved techniques for performing equalization that are quick yet provide equalization parameters that are stable even in a noisy high-speed link.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for enhancing motion estimation based on user input are provided. The motion estimation apparatus used for video encoding comprises a receiver operable to receive a user based input and an input analysis module operable to analyzed the user based input. The apparatus also comprises an encoder that is operable to compute displacement coordinates from the analyzed user based input for a current block in a target frame of a video stream and operable to determine a search area in a reference frame to search for a best match for the current block using the displacement coordinates. The encoder can also comprise a block match module operable to find a best match block for the current block in the search area of the reference frame using a block matching procedure.