Patents by Inventor Benjamin Tsien

Benjamin Tsien has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20210200298
    Abstract: Methods, devices and systems for power management in a computer processing device are disclosed. The methods may include selecting, by a data fabric, D23 as target state, selecting D3 state by a memory controller, blocking memory access, reducing data fabric and memory controller clocks, reduce SoC voltage, and turning PHY voltage off. The methods may include signaling to wake up the SoC, starting exit flow by ramping up SoC voltage and ramping data fabric and memory controller clocks, unblocking memory access, propagating activity associated with the wake up event to memory, exiting D3 by PHY, and exiting self-refresh by a memory.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 30, 2019
    Publication date: July 1, 2021
    Applicant: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien
  • Publication number: 20210191879
    Abstract: A processor in a system is responsive to a coherent memory request buffer having a plurality of entries to store coherent memory requests from a client module and a non-coherent memory request buffer having a plurality of entries to store non-coherent memory requests from the client module. The client module buffers coherent and non-coherent memory requests and releases the memory requests based on one or more conditions of the processor or one of its caches. The memory requests are released to a central data fabric and into the system based on a first watermark associated with the coherent memory buffer and a second watermark associated with the non-coherent memory buffer.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2019
    Publication date: June 24, 2021
    Inventors: Sonu ARORA, Benjamin TSIEN, Alexander J. BRANOVER
  • Publication number: 20210173715
    Abstract: A method, system, and apparatus determines that one or more tasks should be relocated from a first processor to a second processor by comparing performance metrics to associated thresholds or by using other indications. To relocate the one or more tasks from the first processor to the second processor, the first processor is stalled and state information from the first processor is copied to the second processor. The second processor uses the state information and then services incoming tasks instead of the first processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 10, 2019
    Publication date: June 10, 2021
    Applicant: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien, Elliot H. Mednick
  • Publication number: 20210090613
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing dynamic control of a multi-region fabric are disclosed. A system includes at least one or more processing units, one or more memory devices, and a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s). The system partitions the fabric into multiple regions based on different traffic types and/or periodicities of the clients connected to the regions. For example, the system partitions the fabric into a stutter region for predictable, periodic clients and a non-stutter region for unpredictable, non-periodic clients. The system power-gates the entirety of the fabric in response to detecting a low activity condition. After power-gating the entirety of the fabric, the system periodically wakes up one or more stutter regions while keeping the other non-stutter regions in power-gated mode. Each stutter region monitors stutter client(s) for activity and processes any requests before going back into power-gated mode.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 7, 2020
    Publication date: March 25, 2021
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Alexander J. Branover, Alan Dodson Smith, Chintan S. Patel
  • Patent number: 10884477
    Abstract: The described embodiments include a computing device with a plurality of clients and a shared resource for processing job items. During operation, a given client of the plurality of clients stores first job items in a queue for the given client. When the queue for the given client meets one or more conditions, the given client notifies one or more other clients that the given client is to process job items using the shared resource. The given client then processes the first job items from the queue using the shared resource. Based on being notified, at least one other client that has second job items to be processed using the shared resource, processes the second job items using the shared resource. The given client can transition the shared resource between power states to enable the processing of job items.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2021
    Assignee: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien
  • Publication number: 20200409762
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for servicing a task in a computer system includes receiving the task and if the task is serviceable without waking the fabric, servicing the task by a first service stage entity. If the task is not serviceable by the first service stage entity, the task is serviced by a first processing unit without waking a second processing unit. If the task is not serviceable by the first processing unit, the task is serviced by the second processing unit.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2019
    Publication date: December 31, 2020
    Applicant: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Alexander J. Branover, Elliot H. Mednick, Benjamin Tsien
  • Publication number: 20200387208
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for reducing chiplet interrupt latency are disclosed. A system includes one or more processing nodes, one or more memory devices, a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s) via link interfaces, and a power management unit. The power management unit manages the power states of the various components and the link interfaces of the system. If the power management unit detects a request to wake up a given component, and the link interface to the given component is powered down, then the power management unit sends an out-of-band signal to wake up the given component in parallel with powering up the link interface. Also, when multiple link interfaces need to be powered up, the power management unit powers up the multiple link interfaces in an order which complies with voltage regulator load-step requirements while minimizing the latency of pending operations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 18, 2020
    Publication date: December 10, 2020
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Michael J. Tresidder, Ivan Yanfeng Wang, Kevin M. Lepak, Ann Ling, Richard M. Born, John P. Petry, Bryan P. Broussard, Eric Christopher Morton
  • Patent number: 10861504
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing dynamic control of a multi-region fabric are disclosed. A system includes at least one or more processing units, one or more memory devices, and a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s). The system partitions the fabric into multiple regions based on different traffic types and/or periodicities of the clients connected to the regions. For example, the system partitions the fabric into a stutter region for predictable, periodic clients and a non-stutter region for unpredictable, non-periodic clients. The system power-gates the entirety of the fabric in response to detecting a low activity condition. After power-gating the entirety of the fabric, the system periodically wakes up one or more stutter regions while keeping the other non-stutter regions in power-gated mode. Each stutter region monitors stutter client(s) for activity and processes any requests before going back into power-gated mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 8, 2020
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Alexander J. Branover, Alan Dodson Smith, Chintan S. Patel
  • Patent number: 10712800
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for aligning active and idle phases of components in a computing system are disclosed. A computing system includes components that can be forced into an active or idle phase and components that cannot be forced into an active or idle phase. The system implements schemes for aligning the active and idle phases of the components within the system. For example, a timer starts counting when a processor and memory subsystem go from a low power state to an operational state. If the amount of time spent by the processor and memory subsystems in the operational state without transitioning to the low power state exceeds a threshold, the system forces active-to-idle and idle-to-active phase transitions of components in the system in order to cause a realignment of active and idle phases of the various components within the system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2020
    Assignees: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI Technologies ULC
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Alexander J. Branover, Ming L. So, Philip Ng, Xiao Gang Zheng, Felix Ho, Joseph Scanlon, Christopher T. Weaver, Xiaojie He, Carl Kittredge Wakeland
  • Patent number: 10671148
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for performing efficient power management for a multi-node computing system are disclosed. A computing system including multiple nodes utilizes a non-uniform memory access (NUMA) architecture. A first node receives a broadcast probe from a second node. The first node spoofs a miss response for a powered down third node, which prevents the third node from waking up to respond to the broadcast probe. Prior to powering down, the third node flushed its probe filter and caches, and updated its system memory with the received dirty cache lines. The computing system includes a master node for storing interrupt priorities of the multiple cores in the computing system for arbitrated interrupts. The cores store indications of fixed interrupt identifiers for each core in the computing system. Arbitrated and fixed interrupts are handled by cores with point-to-point unicast messages, rather than broadcast messages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2020
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Bryan P. Broussard, Vydhyanathan Kalyanasundharam
  • Patent number: 10656696
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for reducing chiplet interrupt latency are disclosed. A system includes one or more processing nodes, one or more memory devices, a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s) via link interfaces, and a power management unit. The power management unit manages the power states of the various components and the link interfaces of the system. If the power management unit detects a request to wake up a given component, and the link interface to the given component is powered down, then the power management unit sends an out-of-band signal to wake up the given component in parallel with powering up the link interface. Also, when multiple link interfaces need to be powered up, the power management unit powers up the multiple link interfaces in an order which complies with voltage regulator load-step requirements while minimizing the latency of pending operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2020
    Assignees: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI Technologies ULC
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Michael J. Tresidder, Ivan Yanfeng Wang, Kevin M. Lepak, Ann Ling, Richard M. Born, John P. Petry, Bryan P. Broussard, Eric Christopher Morton
  • Patent number: 10474211
    Abstract: A data processing system includes a power manager for providing a power event depth signal in response to a power event request signal. A plurality of real-time clients is coupled to the power manager. Each real-time client includes a client buffer that has a plurality of entries for storing data. The real-time client also includes a register for storing a watermark threshold for the client buffer, as well as logic for providing an allow signal when a number of valid entries in the client buffer exceeds the watermark threshold. A power management state machine is coupled to each of the plurality of real-time clients. The power management state machine provides a power event start signal in response to all of the plurality of real-time clients providing respective allow signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 12, 2019
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Sonu Arora, Alexander Branover, Benjamin Tsien
  • Patent number: 10403351
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for using a scoreboard to track updates to configuration state registers are disclosed. A system includes one or more processing nodes, one or more memory devices, a plurality of configuration state registers, and a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s). The system uses a scoreboard to track updates to the configuration state registers during run-time. Prior to a node going into a power-gated state, the system stores only those configuration state registers that have changed. This reduces the amount of data written to memory on each transition into power-gated state, and increases the amount of time the node can spend in the power-gated state. Also, configuration state registers are grouped together to match the memory access granularity, and each group of configuration state registers has a corresponding scoreboard entry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 3, 2019
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Chintan S. Patel, Vamsi Krishna Alla, Alan Dodson Smith
  • Publication number: 20190265774
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for aligning active and idle phases of components in a computing system are disclosed. A computing system includes components that can be forced into an active or idle phase and components that cannot be forced into an active or idle phase. The system implements schemes for aligning the active and idle phases of the components within the system. For example, a timer starts counting when a processor and memory subsystem go from a low power state to an operational state. If the amount of time spent by the processor and memory subsystems in the operational state without transitioning to the low power state exceeds a threshold, the system forces active-to-idle and idle-to-active phase transitions of components in the system in order to cause a realignment of active and idle phases of the various components within the system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 28, 2018
    Publication date: August 29, 2019
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Alexander J. Branover, Ming L. So, Philip Ng, Xiao Gang Zheng, Felix Ho, Joseph Scanlon, Christopher T. Weaver, Xiaojie He, Carl Kittredge Wakeland
  • Publication number: 20190259448
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for using a scoreboard to track updates to configuration state registers are disclosed. A system includes one or more processing nodes, one or more memory devices, a plurality of configuration state registers, and a communication fabric coupled to the processing unit(s) and memory device(s). The system uses a scoreboard to track updates to the configuration state registers during run-time. Prior to a node going into a power-gated state, the system stores only those configuration state registers that have changed. This reduces the amount of data written to memory on each transition into power-gated state, and increases the amount of time the node can spend in the power-gated state. Also, configuration state registers are grouped together to match the memory access granularity, and each group of configuration state registers has a corresponding scoreboard entry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 22, 2018
    Publication date: August 22, 2019
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Chintan S. Patel, Vamsi Krishna Alla, Alan Dodson Smith
  • Publication number: 20190207607
    Abstract: An electronic device includes a plurality of hardware functional blocks, the hardware functional blocks being logically grouped into two or more islands, with each island including a different one or more of the hardware functional blocks. A hardware controller in the electronic device is configured to determine a present activity being performed by at least one of the hardware functional blocks. The hardware controller then, based on the present activity, configures supply voltages for the hardware functional blocks in some or all of the islands.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 29, 2017
    Publication date: July 4, 2019
    Inventors: Thomas J. Gibney, Sridhar V. Gada, Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien
  • Publication number: 20190204899
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for performing efficient power management for a multi-node computing system are disclosed. A computing system includes multiple nodes. When power down negotiation is distributed, negotiation for system-wide power down occurs within a lower level of a node hierarchy prior to negotiation for power down occurring at a higher level of the node hierarchy. When power down negotiation is centralized, a given node combines a state of its clients with indications received on its downstream link and sends an indication on an upstream link based on the combining. Only a root node sends power down requests.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 28, 2017
    Publication date: July 4, 2019
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Greggory D. Donley, Bryan P. Broussard
  • Patent number: 10340916
    Abstract: An electronic device includes a plurality of hardware functional blocks, the hardware functional blocks being logically grouped into two or more islands, with each island including a different one or more of the hardware functional blocks. A hardware controller in the electronic device is configured to determine a present activity being performed by at least one of the hardware functional blocks. The hardware controller then, based on the present activity, configures supply voltages for the hardware functional blocks in some or all of the islands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Thomas J. Gibney, Sridhar V. Gada, Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien
  • Publication number: 20190196574
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for performing efficient power management for a multi-node computing system are disclosed. A computing system including multiple nodes utilizes a non-uniform memory access (NUMA) architecture. A first node receives a broadcast probe from a second node. The first node spoofs a miss response for a powered down third node, which prevents the third node from waking up to respond to the broadcast probe. Prior to powering down, the third node flushed its probe filter and caches, and updated its system memory with the received dirty cache lines. The computing system includes a master node for storing interrupt priorities of the multiple cores in the computing system for arbitrated interrupts. The cores store indications of fixed interrupt identifiers for each core in the computing system. Arbitrated and fixed interrupts are handled by cores with point-to-point unicast messages, rather than broadcast messages.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2017
    Publication date: June 27, 2019
    Inventors: Benjamin Tsien, Bryan P. Broussard, Vydhyanathan Kalyanasundharam
  • Patent number: 10304506
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing dynamic clock control to increase stutter efficiency in a memory subsystem are disclosed. A system includes at least a processor, a memory, and a communication fabric coupled to the processor and memory. The system implements a stutter mode for a first region of the fabric, with stutter mode including an idle state and an active state. Stutter efficiency is defined as the idle time divided by the sum of the active time and the idle time. Reducing the exit latency of going from the idle state to the active state increases the stutter efficiency which increases the power savings achieved by implementing the stutter mode. Since the phase-locked loop (PLL) is one of the main contributors to the exit latency, the PLL is powered down and one or more bypass clocks are provided during the stutter mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignees: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI Technologies ULC
    Inventors: Alexander J. Branover, Benjamin Tsien, Bradley Kent, Joyce C. Wong