Patents Assigned to VIA Technologies
  • Publication number: 20120331325
    Abstract: An apparatus is provided that compensates for misalignment on a synchronous data bus. The apparatus includes a Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) interface, a synchronous bus optimizer, and a delay-locked loop (DLL). The JTAG interface is configured to receive control information over a standard JTAG bus, where the control information indicates an amount to delay a data bit signal associated with a data group. The synchronous bus optimizer is configured to receive the control information, and is configured to develop a value on a ratio bus that indicates the amount. The DLL is coupled to the ratio bus, and is configured generate a delayed data bit signal, where the DLL adds the amount of delay to the data bit signal to generate the delayed data bit signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Publication number: 20120331326
    Abstract: An apparatus is provided that compensates for misalignment on a synchronous data bus. The apparatus includes a resistor network, a core clocks generator, and a synchronous strobe driver. The resistor network is configured to provide a ratio signal that indicates an amount to advance a synchronous data strobe associated with a data group. The core clocks generator is coupled to the ratio signal, and is configured to advance a data strobe clock by the amount. The synchronous strobe driver is configured to receive the data strobe clock, and is configured to employ the data strobe clock to generate the synchronous data strobe, where the synchronous data strobe, when enabled, is advanced also by the amount.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Publication number: 20120331327
    Abstract: An apparatus that compensates for misalignment on a synchronous data bus, including a resistor network, a transmitting device, and a receiving device. The resistor network indicates an amount to advance a synchronous data strobe associated with a data group. The transmitting device has a core clocks generator and a synchronous strobe driver. The core clocks generator advances a data strobe clock by the amount. The synchronous strobe driver employs the data strobe clock to generate the synchronous data strobe, where the synchronous data strobe is advanced also by the amount. The receiving device has a composite delay element and delay-locked loops (DLLs). The composite delay element equalizes delay paths within the receiving device, where the delay paths correspond to the synchronous data strobe that is received from the transmitting device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Publication number: 20120331329
    Abstract: An apparatus is provided that compensates for misalignment on a synchronous data bus. The apparatus includes a resistor network, a composite delay element, and delay-locked loops (DLLs). The resistor network is configured to provide a ratio signal that indicates an amount to delay data bit signals associated with a data group. The composite delay element is configured to equalize delay paths within a receiving device, where the delay paths correspond to a data strobe signal that is received from a transmitting device. The DLLs are coupled to the ratio signal and disposed within the receiving device, and are configured to generate delayed data bit signals, where the DLLs add the amount of delay to the data bit signals to generate the delayed data bit signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Publication number: 20120331324
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) interface, a synchronous bus optimizer, a core clocks generator, and a synchronous strobe driver. The JTAG interface is configured to receive control information over a standard JTAG bus, where the control information indicates an amount to advance a synchronous data strobe associated with a data group. The synchronous bus optimizer is configured to receive the control information, and is configured to develop a value on a ratio bus that indicates the amount. The core clocks generator is coupled to the ratio bus and is configured to advance a data strobe clock by the amount. The synchronous strobe driver is configured to receive the data strobe clock, and is configured to employ the data strobe clock to generate the synchronous data strobe, where the synchronous data strobe, when enabled, is advanced also by the amount.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Publication number: 20120331330
    Abstract: An apparatus including a JTAG interface, synchronous bus optimizer, core clocks generator, synchronous strobe driver, and a DLL. The JTAG interface receives control information indicating a first amount to advance a synchronous data strobe associated with a first data group and a second amount to delay a data bit signal associated with a second data group. The synchronous bus optimizer receives the control information, and develops a first value on a first ratio bus that indicates the first amount and a second value on a second ratio bus that indicates the second amount. The core clocks generator advances a data strobe clock by the first amount. The synchronous strobe driver employs the data strobe clock to generate the synchronous data strobe, where the synchronous data strobe, when enabled, is advanced also by the first amount. The DLL generates a delayed data bit signal, delayed by the second amount.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 21, 2011
    Publication date: December 27, 2012
    Applicant: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Darius D. Gaskins, James R. Lundberg
  • Patent number: 8341472
    Abstract: An apparatus in an integrated circuit for precluding the use of extended JTAG operations. The apparatus has a JTAG control chain, a feature fuse, a level sensor, and an access controller. The JTAG control chain is configured to enable/disable the extended JTAG operations. The feature fuse is configured to indicate whether the extended JTAG features are to be disabled. The level sensor is configured to monitor an external voltage signal, and configured to indicate that the external voltage signal is at an illegal level. The access controller is coupled to the feature fuse, the level sensor, and the JTAG control chain, and is configured to determine if the feature fuse is blown, and is configured to direct the JTAG control chain to disable the extended JTAG operations if the external voltage signal is at an illegal level regardless of whether the feature fuse is blown.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: G. Glenn Henry, Dinesh K. Jain
  • Patent number: 8341419
    Abstract: A microprocessor having a control register to which the manufacturer of the microprocessor may limit access. The microprocessor includes a manufacturing identifier that uniquely identifies the microprocessor and that is externally readable from the microprocessor by a user. The microprocessor also includes a secret key, manufactured internally within the microprocessor and externally invisible. The microprocessor also includes an encryption engine, coupled to the secret key, configured to decrypt a user-supplied password using the secret key to generate a decrypted result in response to a user instruction instructing the microprocessor to access the control register. The user-supplied password is unique to the microprocessor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: G. Glenn Henry, Terry Parks
  • Patent number: 8335941
    Abstract: A method for reducing power consumption of a computer system in a working state is provided. The computer system comprises a processor, a memory and a chipset, and the processor is connected with the chipset through a processor bus. The method comprises classifying the power saving level of the computer system into a predetermined number of power saving modes, checking at least one power saving mode transition condition to determine whether to automatically raise the power saving mode of the computer system, and raising the power saving mode of the computer system by lowering a first voltage supply level of the chipset and a second voltage supply level of the memory and decreasing a first working frequency of the processor bus and a second working frequency of the memory. The power consumption of the computer system is further reduced in comparison with a normal working state when the power saving mode of the computer system is further raised.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2012
    Assignee: Via Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Nai-Shung Chang, Chia-Hsing Yu
  • Patent number: 8335282
    Abstract: A method for implementing an equalizer of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) baseband receiver is provided. The OFDM baseband receiver includes a channel estimation and tracking module for estimating a channel impulse response of an input signal of the equalizer. A conjugate of the channel impulse response is first calculated. The input signal and the conjugate of the channel impulse response are then multiplied to generate a product signal. The product signal is then taken as the output signal of the equalizer without dividing the product signal by a channel state information, wherein the channel state information represents a square of an absolute value of the channel impulse response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2006
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2012
    Assignee: Via Technologies Inc.
    Inventors: Jian-Wei Huang, Jeff Lin
  • Patent number: 8335910
    Abstract: An apparatus extracts instructions from a stream of undifferentiated instruction bytes in a microprocessor having an instruction set architecture in which the instructions are variable length. Decoders generate an associated start/end mark for each instruction byte of a line from a first queue of entries each storing a line of instruction bytes. A second queue has entries each storing a line received from the first queue along with the associated start/end marks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 18, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Thomas C. McDonald
  • Patent number: 8332618
    Abstract: An out-of-order execution microprocessor includes a register alias table configured to generate a first indicator that indicates whether an instruction is dependent upon a condition code result of a shift instruction. The microprocessor also includes a first execution unit configured to execute the shift instruction and to generate a second indicator that indicates whether a shift amount of the shift instruction is zero. The microprocessor also includes a second execution unit configured to receive the first and second indicators and to generate a replay signal to cause the instruction to be replayed if the first indicator indicates the instruction is dependent upon the condition code result of the shift instruction and a second indicator indicates the shift amount of the shift instruction is zero.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Gerard M. Col, Matthew Daniel Day, Terry Parks, Bryan Wayne Pogor
  • Patent number: 8327119
    Abstract: An apparatus executes a bit scan instruction that specifies an N-byte input operand. A first encoder forward bit scan encodes each input byte to generate N first bit vectors. A zero detector zero-detects each input byte to generate a second bit vector. A second encoder forward bit scan encodes the second bit vector to generate a third bit vector. An N:1 multiplexor, controlled by the third bit vector, selects one of the N first bit vectors to output a fourth bit vector. The apparatus concatenates the third and fourth bit vectors into a fifth bit vector that indicates the bit index of the least significant set bit of the input operand. A third encoder forward bit scan encodes a bit-reversed version of each input by to generate N sixth bit vectors. A fourth encoder forward bit scan encodes a bit-reversed version of the second bit vector to generate a seventh bit vector. A second N:1 multiplexor, controlled by the seventh bit vector, selects one of the N sixth bit vectors to output an eighth bit vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 4, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Bryan Wayne Pogor
  • Patent number: 8319774
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to graphics processing systems, comprising: a plurality of execution units, wherein one of the execution units is configurable to process a thread corresponding to a rendering context, wherein the rendering context comprises a plurality of constants with a priority level; a constant buffer configurable to store the constants of the rendering context into a plurality of slot in a physical storage space; and an execution unit control unit configurable to assign the thread to one of the execution units; a constant buffer control unit providing a translation table for the rendering context to map the corresponding constants into the slots of the physical storage space. Comparable methods are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2012
    Assignee: Via Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Yang (Jeff) Jiao, Yijung Su, John Brothers
  • Patent number: 8316243
    Abstract: A microprocessor includes a manufacturing ID that is stored in the microprocessor during manufacture thereof in a non-volatile manner. The manufacturing ID is unique to the microprocessor. The microprocessor also includes a secret encryption key that is stored internally within the microprocessor and unreadable externally from the microprocessor. The microprocessor also includes an AES encryption engine, coupled to receive the manufacturing ID and the secret encryption key, configured to encrypt the manufacturing ID using the secret encryption key to generate an unpredictable key that is unique to the microprocessor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: G. Glenn Henry, Terry Parks
  • Patent number: 8303315
    Abstract: A lead arrangement suitable for an electrical connector includes a lead lane. The lead lane includes a pair of first differential signal leads, a pair of second differential signal leads, and a ground lead positioned between the two pairs of first and second differential signal leads. Each of the first and second differential signal leads has a surface mounting segment for being soldered onto a surface pad of a circuit board. The ground lead has a via passing segment for being soldered into a through via of the circuit board.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Sheng-Yuan Lee
  • Patent number: 8302298
    Abstract: A process for fabricating a circuit substrate is provided. A patterned conductive layer having an inner pad is provided on a base layer, a dielectric layer is disposed on the base layer and covers the patterned conductive layer, and a covering layer is disposed on the dielectric layer. A part of the covering layer is removed by dry etching to form a first opening. A part of the dielectric layer exposed by the first opening is removed to form a dielectric opening exposing a part of the inner pad. A patterned mask having a second opening to expose a part of the inner pad is formed on the covering layer. A conductive structure including a conductive block filling the dielectric opening, an outer pad filling the first opening and a surplus layer filling the second opening is formed. Finally, the patterned mask, surplus layer and covering layer are removed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Chen-Yueh Kung, Wei-Cheng Chen
  • Patent number: 8301842
    Abstract: An apparatus for allocating entries in a set associative cache memory includes an array that provides a first pseudo-least-recently-used (PLRU) vector in response to a first allocation request from a first functional unit. The first PLRU vector specifies a first entry from a set of the cache memory specified by the first allocation request. The first vector is a tree of bits comprising a plurality of levels. Toggling logic receives the first vector and toggles predetermined bits thereof to generate a second PLRU vector in response to a second allocation request from a second functional unit generated concurrently with the first allocation request and specifying the same set of the cache memory specified by the first allocation request. The second vector specifies a second entry different from the first entry from the same set. The predetermined bits comprise bits of a predetermined one of the levels of the tree.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Colin Eddy, Rodney E. Hooker
  • Patent number: 8295455
    Abstract: A computer system including telephone functionality. The computer system includes a first keyboard and a first display. The computer system also includes a processor having at least a first functional unit and a second functional unit, and further includes a phone portion. The computer system may operate in a first mode, a second mode, or a third mode. In the first mode, only the phone portion is activated. In the second mode, the phone portion and first functional unit of the processor are activated. In the third mode, each of the phone portion, the first functional unit, and the second functional unit are activated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 23, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Chi Chang
  • Patent number: 8291172
    Abstract: A microprocessor includes first and second cache memories occupying distinct hierarchy levels, the second backing the first. A prefetcher monitors load operations and maintains a recent history of the load operations from a cache line and determines whether the recent history indicates a clear direction. The prefetcher prefetches one or more cache lines into the first cache memory when the recent history indicates a clear direction and otherwise prefetches the one or more cache lines into the second cache memory. The prefetcher also determines whether the recent history indicates the load operations are large and, other things being equal, prefetches a greater number of cache lines when large than small. The prefetcher also determines whether the recent history indicates the load operations are received on consecutive clock cycles and, other things being equal, prefetches a greater number of cache lines when on consecutive clock cycles than not.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2012
    Assignee: VIA Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Rodney E. Hooker, Colin Eddy