Patents by Inventor Craig McKnight

Craig McKnight 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).

  • Patent number: 11566183
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventors: Sujit Bhattacharya, Craig McKnight, Salvador Escobedo Salas, Hugo deLasa
  • Publication number: 20220204862
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 21, 2022
    Publication date: June 30, 2022
    Inventors: SUJIT BHATTACHARYA, CRAIG McKNIGHT, SALVADOR ESCOBEDO SALAS, HUGO deLASA
  • Patent number: 11261384
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventors: Sujit Bhattacharya, Craig McKnight, Salvador Escobedo Salas, Hugo deLasa
  • Publication number: 20210071087
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 10, 2020
    Publication date: March 11, 2021
    Inventors: SUJIT BHATTACHARYA, CRAIG McKNIGHT, SALVADOR ESCOBEDO SALAS, HUGO deLASA
  • Patent number: 10703979
    Abstract: The present invention is directed towards modifying the internals of the reactor section of a fluidized coke reactor such that the majority of the hydrocarbon feed will react in the core region of the reactor section and that any hydrocarbon vapour that is produced in the annular region will be released into the core region. Therefore, the present invention reduces the residence time of vapour immediately flashed from the injected hydrocarbon feed, resulting in reduced secondary vapour phase cracking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2020
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Michael Wormsbecker, Jennifer McMillan, Craig McKnight, Jason Wiens
  • Patent number: 10508241
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent from tailings comprising bitumen, particulate solids, hydrocarbon diluent and water, is provided comprising introducing the tailings into a high pressure stripping vessel operating at a pressure greater than 100 kPa; and introducing a stripping gas into the high pressure stripping vessel to strip the hydrocarbon diluent and water from the tailings and form a stripped tailings pool at the bottom of the vessel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2019
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Sujit Bhattacharya, Barry Bara, Craig A. McKnight, Daniel John Bulbuc, George Cymerman
  • Publication number: 20190161684
    Abstract: A process for converting a heavy hydrocarbonaceous feedstock to liquid products is provided comprising introducing the hydrocarbonaceous feedstock into a fluid coker comprised in part of a fluidized bed of heated coke particles, the fluidized bed having a high velocity core region of heated coke particles and a low velocity annular region of unreacted hydrocarbon and coke particles using a plurality of high thrust nozzles and reacting the hydrocarbonaceous feedstock with the heated coke particles in the fluid coker to produce the liquid products.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 27, 2018
    Publication date: May 30, 2019
    Inventors: JENNIFER McMILLAN, CRAIG McKNIGHT, MICHAEL WORMSBECKER, JASON WIENS, BRIAN KNAPPER
  • Publication number: 20180346818
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent from tailings comprising bitumen, particulate solids, hydrocarbon diluent and water, is provided comprising introducing the tailings into a high pressure stripping vessel operating at a pressure greater than 100 kPa; and introducing a stripping gas into the high pressure stripping vessel to strip the hydrocarbon diluent and water from the tailings and form a stripped tailings pool at the bottom of the vessel.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 5, 2017
    Publication date: December 6, 2018
    Inventors: SUJIT BHATTACHARYA, BARRY BARA, CRAIG A. McKNIGHT, DANIEL JOHN BULBUC, GEORGE CYMERMAN
  • Patent number: 9607407
    Abstract: A method, in one embodiment, can include performing difference transformation of image samples. In addition, the method can also include performing length selection. Furthermore; the method can include performing packing that includes utilizing varying sized bit fields to produce a compressed representation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2017
    Assignee: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jonathan Dunaisky, David Kirk McAllister, William Craig McKnight
  • Patent number: 9574145
    Abstract: A method of upgrading bitumen in a plant comprising a diluent recovery unit that processes diluted bitumen and outputs atmospheric topped bitumen (ATB), a vacuum distillation unit which processes ATB and outputs vacuum topped bitumen (VTB), and at least one fluid coker unit which processes VTB and outputs a tar pot bottom stream comprising heavy heavy gas oil is provided comprising the step of processing the tar pot bottom stream in a catalytic hydrocracking unit comprising an ebullated bed reactor to produce naphtha, light gas oil, and heavy gas oil.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2017
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Craig A. McKnight, Jason Wiens
  • Patent number: 9569348
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for performing a method for compressing page table entries (PTEs) prior to storing the PTEs in a translation look-aside buffer (TLB). A page table entry (PTE) request is received for a PTE that is not stored in the TLB. The PTE as well as a plurality of PTEs that are adjacent to the PTE are retrieved from a memory. The PTE and the plurality of PTEs are compressed and then stored in the TLB.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: James Leroy Deming, Mark Allen Mosley, William Craig McKnight
  • Patent number: 9530189
    Abstract: A method for compressing framebuffer data is presented. The method includes determining a reduction ratio for framebuffer data in a tile including multiple samples. The reduction ratio determined is independent of the sampling mode, where the sampling mode is the number of samples within each pixel in the tile. The method further includes comparing a first portion of the framebuffer data for each of the multiple samples to determine an equality comparison result and also comparing a second portion of the framebuffer data for each one of the multiple samples to compute per-channel differences for each one of the multiple samples and testing the per-channel differences against a threshold value to determine a threshold comparison result. Finally, the method comprises compressing the framebuffer data for the tile based on the reduction ratio, the equality comparison result and the threshold comparison result to produce output framebuffer data for the tile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jonathan Dunaisky, David Kirk McAllister, Steven E. Molnar, Narayan Kulshrestha, Rui Bastos, Joseph Detmer, William Craig McKnight
  • Publication number: 20160348010
    Abstract: A process for cleaning bitumen froth produced from an oil sands extraction process involves mixing a sufficient amount of paraffinic solvent with the bitumen froth; subjecting the resulting mixture to centrifugal separation in a centrifuge to yield a diluted bitumen product, a water byproduct stream, and a solids byproduct stream; and processing the diluted bitumen product to yield dry fungible bitumen product having a total water/solids content less than about 0.5 wt %, and a recyclable paraffinic diluent stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 26, 2016
    Publication date: December 1, 2016
    Inventors: DANIEL JOHN BULBUC, CRAIG McKNIGHT, THADDEUS EUGENE KIZIOR, DAVID HAROLD CHILDS
  • Publication number: 20160348008
    Abstract: A process for cleaning bitumen froth produced from an oil sands extraction process involves mixing a sufficient amount of paraffinic solvent with the bitumen froth; subjecting the resulting mixture to centrifugal separation in a centrifuge to yield a diluted bitumen product, a water byproduct stream, and a solids byproduct stream; and processing the diluted bitumen product to yield dry fungible bitumen product having a total water/solids content less than about 0.5 wt %, and a recyclable paraffinic diluent stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 27, 2015
    Publication date: December 1, 2016
    Inventors: DANIEL JOHN BULBUC, CRAIG McKNIGHT, THADDEUS EUGENE KIZIOR, DAVID HAROLD CHILDS
  • Publication number: 20160312126
    Abstract: A fluid coking process is operated in a fluidized bed coking reactor in which a plurality of heavy oil inlet nozzles are arranged in a number of rings around the periphery of the dense bed reaction section at vertically spaced elevations. A heavy oil feed is injected with atomization steam through the nozzles into the fluidized. bed, operating at a lower steam-to-oil ratio for the upper ring or rings of nozzles than for the lower ring or rings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 30, 2016
    Publication date: October 27, 2016
    Inventors: Michael Wormsbecker, Jason S. Wiens, Jennifer McMillan, Craig A. McKnight, Brian A. Knapper
  • Patent number: 9183609
    Abstract: A technique for efficiently rendering content reduces each complex blend mode to a series of basic blend operations. The series of basic blend operations are executed within a recirculating pipeline until a final blended value is computed. The recirculating pipeline is positioned within a color raster operations unit of a graphics processing unit for efficient access to image buffer data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2015
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: Rui Bastos, Mark J. Kilgard, William Craig McKnight, Jerome F. Duluk, Jr., Pierre Souillot, Dale L. Kirkland, Christian Amsinck, Joseph Detmer, Christian Rouet, Don Bittel
  • Publication number: 20140184612
    Abstract: A method, in one embodiment, can include performing difference transformation of image samples. In addition, the method can also include performing length selection. Furthermore; the method can include performing packing that includes utilizing varying sized bit fields to produce a compressed representation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 31, 2012
    Publication date: July 3, 2014
    Applicant: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jonathan Dunaisky, David Kirk McAllister, Craig McKnight
  • Publication number: 20140176568
    Abstract: A technique for efficiently rendering content reduces each complex blend mode to a series of basic blend operations. The series of basic blend operations are executed within a recirculating pipeline until a final blended value is computed. The recirculating pipeline is positioned within a color raster operations unit of a graphics processing unit for efficient access to image buffer data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2012
    Publication date: June 26, 2014
    Applicant: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Rui BASTOS, Mark J. Kilgard, William Craig McKnight, Jerome F. Duluk, Pierre Souillot, Dale L. Kirkland, Christian Amsinck, Joseph Detmer, Christian Rouet, Don Bittel
  • Publication number: 20130249897
    Abstract: A method for compressing framebuffer data is presented. The method includes determining a reduction ratio for framebuffer data in a tile including multiple samples. The reduction ratio determined is independent of the sampling mode, where the sampling mode is the number of samples within each pixel in the tile. The method further includes comparing a first portion of the framebuffer data for each of the multiple samples to determine an equality comparison result and also comparing a second portion of the framebuffer data for each one of the multiple samples to compute per-channel differences for each one of the multiple samples and testing the per-channel differences against a threshold value to determine a threshold comparison result. Finally, the method comprises compressing the framebuffer data for the tile based on the reduction ratio, the equality comparison result and the threshold comparison result to produce output framebuffer data for the tile.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 27, 2012
    Publication date: September 26, 2013
    Applicant: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Jonathan Dunaisky, David Kirk McAllister, Steven E. Molnar, Narayan Kulshrestha, Rui Bastos, Joseph Detmer, William Craig McKnight
  • Patent number: 8341380
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a system and method for supporting high-throughput virtual to physical address translation using compressed TLB cache lines with variable address range coverage. The amount of memory covered by a TLB cache line depends on the page size and page table entry (PTE) compression level. When a TLB miss occurs, a cache line is allocated with an assumed address range that may be larger or smaller than the address range of the PTE data actually returned. Subsequent requests that hit a cache line with a fill pending are queued until the fill completes. When the fill completes, the cache line's address range is set to the address range of the PTE data returned. Queued requests are replayed and any that fall outside the actual address range are reissued, potentially generating additional misses and fills.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2012
    Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
    Inventors: James Leroy Deming, Mark Allen Mosley, William Craig McKnight, Emmett M. Kilgrariff, Steven E. Molnar, Colyn Scott Case