Patents by Inventor Eric Demers
Eric Demers 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).
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Publication number: 20170084043Abstract: A graphics processing unit (GPU) may determine a workload of a fragment shader program that executes on the GPU. The GPU may compare the workload of the fragment shader program to a threshold. In response to determining that the workload of the fragment shader program is lower than a specified threshold, the fragment shader program may process one or more fragments without the GPU performing early depth testing of the one or more fragments before the processing by the fragment shader program. The GPU may perform, after processing by the fragment shader program, late depth testing of the one or more fragments to result in one or more non-occluded fragments. The GPU may write pixel values for the one or more non-occluded fragments into a frame buffer.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 23, 2015Publication date: March 23, 2017Inventors: Shambhoo Khandelwal, Yang Xia, Xuefeng Tang, Jian Liang, Tao Wang, Andrew Evan Gruber, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 9489313Abstract: The present disclosure provides for systems and methods to process a non-resident page that may include attempting to access the non-resident page, an address for the non-resident page pointing to a memory page containing default values, determining that the non-resident page should not cause a page fault based on an indicator indicating that a particular non-resident page should not generate a page fault, returning an indication that a memory read did not translate and returning the default value when the access of the non-resident page is a read and the non-resident page should not cause a page fault. Another example may discontinue a write when the access of the non-resident page is a write and the non-resident page should not cause a page fault.Type: GrantFiled: September 24, 2013Date of Patent: November 8, 2016Assignee: QUALCOMM IncorporatedInventors: David A. Gotwalt, Thomas Edwin Frisinger, Andrew Evan Gruber, Eric Demers, Colin Christopher Sharp
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Patent number: 9218289Abstract: A method includes storing, with a first programmable processor, shared variable data to cache lines of a first cache of the first processor. The method further includes executing, with the first programmable processor, a store-with-release operation, executing, with a second programmable processor, a load-with-acquire operation, and loading, with the second programmable processor, the value of the shared variable data from a cache of the second programmable processor.Type: GrantFiled: August 2, 2013Date of Patent: December 22, 2015Assignee: QUALCOMM IncorporatedInventors: Bohuslav Rychlik, Tzung Ren Tzeng, Andrew Evan Gruber, Alexei V. Bourd, Colin Christopher Sharp, Eric Demers
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Publication number: 20150089146Abstract: The present disclosure provides for systems and methods to process a non-resident page that may include attempting to access the non-resident page, an address for the non-resident page pointing to a memory page containing default values, determining that the non-resident page should not cause a page fault based on an indicator indicating that a particular non-resident page should not generate a page fault, returning an indication that a memory read did not translate and returning the default value when the access of the non-resident page is a read and the non-resident page should not cause a page fault. Another example may discontinue a write when the access of the non-resident page is a write and the non-resident page should not cause a page fault.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 24, 2013Publication date: March 26, 2015Applicant: QUALCOMM IncorporatedInventors: David A. Gotwalt, Thomas Edwin Frisinger, Andrew Evan Gruber, Eric Demers, Colin Christopher Sharp
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Patent number: 8933945Abstract: A graphics processing circuit includes at least two pipelines operative to process data in a corresponding set of tiles of a repeating tile pattern, a respective one of the at least two pipelines operative to process data in a dedicated tile, wherein the repeating tile pattern includes a horizontally and vertically repeating pattern of square regions. A graphics processing method includes receiving vertex data for a primitive to be rendered; generating pixel data in response to the vertex data; determining the pixels within a set of tiles of a repeating tile pattern to be processed by a corresponding one of at least two graphics pipelines in response to the pixel data, the repeating tile pattern including a horizontally and vertically repeating pattern of square regions; and performing pixel operations on the pixels within the determined set of tiles by the corresponding one of the at least two graphics pipelines.Type: GrantFiled: June 12, 2003Date of Patent: January 13, 2015Assignee: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Publication number: 20140040552Abstract: A method includes storing, with a first programmable processor, shared variable data to cache lines of a first cache of the first processor. The method further includes executing, with the first programmable processor, a store-with-release operation, executing, with a second programmable processor, a load-with-acquire operation, and loading, with the second programmable processor, the value of the shared variable data from a cache of the second programmable processor.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 2, 2013Publication date: February 6, 2014Applicant: QUALCOMM IncorporatedInventors: Bohuslav Rychlik, Tzung Ren Tzeng, Andrew Evan Gruber, Alexei V. Bourd, Colin Christopher Sharp, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 8615637Abstract: A processing system is provided. The processing system includes a first processing unit coupled to a first memory and a second processing unit coupled to a second memory. The second memory comprises a coherent memory and a private memory that is private to the second processing unit.Type: GrantFiled: September 9, 2010Date of Patent: December 24, 2013Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.Inventors: Philip J. Rogers, Warren Fritz Kruger, Mark Hummel, Eric Demers
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Publication number: 20110188991Abstract: A hydraulic turbine including: a passageway permitting liquid to pass through the turbine; a draft tube defining a portion of the passageway through which liquid normally flows in a vortex flow path during optimal turbine operating conditions; a rotatable runner mounted upstream of the draft tube and rotating about a central axis passing through the runner and extending into the draft tube; at least one nozzle head device positioned relative to the central axis of the runner and adjacent to an upper portion of the draft tube, the at least one nozzle head device has at least one nozzle from which a corresponding control jet of high velocity liquid is injected axially downstream of the runner and into liquid flowing into the upper portion of the draft tube during part load turbine operation, so as to mitigate breakdown of the vortex flow path.Type: ApplicationFiled: February 23, 2007Publication date: August 4, 2011Applicant: ANDRITZ TECHNOLOGY AND ASSET MANAGEMENT GMBHInventors: Gabriel Ciocan, Thi Cong Vu, Bernd Nennemann, Eric Demers, Romeo Florin Susan-Resiga
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Publication number: 20110060879Abstract: A processing system is provided. The processing system includes a first processing unit coupled to a first memory and a second processing unit coupled to a second memory. The second memory comprises a coherent memory and a private memory that is private to the second processing unit.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 9, 2010Publication date: March 10, 2011Applicant: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.Inventors: Philip J. ROGERS, Warren Fritz Kruger, Mark Hummel, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 7796133Abstract: The present invention is a unified shader unit used in texture processing in graphics processing device. Unlike the conventional method of using one shader for texture coordinate shading and another for color shading, the present shader performs both operations. The unified shader uses the same precision for both texture coordinate and color shading, thus simplifying the complexity of programming for two separate conventional shaders with different levels of precision. Furthermore, the present invention uses enhanced scheduling logic to perform indirect texture and bump mapping in a single first-in, first-out (FIFO) memory structure and avoids the problems associated with large FIFOs with buffer registers found in conventional shaders. In one embodiment, a plurality of ALU-memory pairs are synchronized to form a plurality of pipelines to execution shading instructions. In another embodiment, a plurality of unified shaders are synchronized and connected together to processing shading operations concurrently.Type: GrantFiled: December 8, 2003Date of Patent: September 14, 2010Assignee: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 7748869Abstract: A recessed lighting fixture includes a trim member and a light projector accessory having one or more lenses, one or more gobos including an image to be projected, a suitable attachment for the accessory to be attached to the recessed light fixture, and a focusing mechanism for focusing the image projected from the gobo.Type: GrantFiled: March 2, 2007Date of Patent: July 6, 2010Assignee: Tripar, Inc.Inventors: Lauren Sevack, Lloyd Sevack, Mario Viscusi, Costa Dampollas, Eric Demers, Julius Posch
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Publication number: 20100110084Abstract: The present invention relates to a parallel pipeline graphics system. The parallel pipeline graphics system includes a back-end configured to receive primitives and combinations of primitives (i.e., geometry) and process the geometry to produce values to place in a frame buffer for rendering on screen. Unlike prior single pipeline implementation, some embodiments use two or four parallel pipelines, though other configurations having 2?n pipelines may be used. When geometry data is sent to the back-end, it is divided up and provided to one of the parallel pipelines. Each pipeline is a component of a raster back-end, where the display screen is divided into tiles and a defined portion of the screen is sent through a pipeline that owns that portion of the screen's tiles. In one embodiment, each pipeline comprises a scan converter, a hierarchical-Z unit, a z buffer logic, a rasterizer, a shader, and a color buffer logic.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 4, 2009Publication date: May 6, 2010Applicant: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 7656416Abstract: A graphics processing circuit includes an anti-aliasing and stippling circuit operative to provide a primitive texture coordinate set in response to vertex data, the anti-aliasing and stippling circuit performing anti-aliasing operations, in parallel, with at least one appearance attribute determination operation on the vertex data, a rasterizer, coupled to the anti-aliasing and stippling circuit, operative to generate a pixel texture coordinate set in response to the primitive texture coordinate set, and apply an appearance value to a pixel defined by the pixel texture coordinate set, and a texture circuit, coupled to the rasterizer, operative to retrieve the appearance value from a corresponding one of a plurality of textures in a multi-texture map in response to the pixel texture coordinate set, the multi-texture map including data representing point, line and polygon texture data.Type: GrantFiled: November 27, 2002Date of Patent: February 2, 2010Assignee: ATI Technologies, Inc.Inventors: Eric Demers, Robert S. Mace
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Patent number: 7633506Abstract: The present invention relates to a parallel pipeline graphics system. The parallel pipeline graphics system includes a back-end configured to receive primitives and combinations of primitives (i.e., geometry) and process the geometry to produce values to place in a frame buffer for rendering on screen. Unlike prior single pipeline implementation, some embodiments use two or four parallel pipelines, though other configurations having 2^n pipelines may be used. When geometry data is sent to the back-end, it is divided up and provided to one of the parallel pipelines. Each pipeline is a component of a raster back-end, where the display screen is divided into tiles and a defined portion of the screen is sent through a pipeline that owns that portion of the screen's tiles. In one embodiment, each pipeline comprises a scan converter, a hierarchical-Z unit, a z buffer logic, a rasterizer, a shader, and a color buffer logic.Type: GrantFiled: November 26, 2003Date of Patent: December 15, 2009Assignee: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 7545387Abstract: The embodiments of the present invention are a method and apparatus to perform anti-aliasing using multi-sampling on a non-power-of-two pixel grid. Using the present invention with 6 sample multisampling gives the same visual antialiasing quality as 8 samples using a prior art technique but uses less memory. A non-power-of-two equally spaced sample from a conventional grid of size N×N, where N is 12 can be chosen using the present invention. A scan conversion to determine the set of pixels covered by a polygon is performed in two parts. According to one embodiment, the present invention can multiply and divide by “N” in order to multisample an image using samples per pixel chosen from a N×N sub-sample grid, where “N” is not necessarily a power of 2. The present invention performs the divide by “N” step, where the step is achieved using a quick divide by 3 or 12 technique.Type: GrantFiled: September 4, 2007Date of Patent: June 9, 2009Assignee: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Publication number: 20070296733Abstract: The embodiments of the present invention are a method and apparatus to perform anti-aliasing using multi-sampling on a non-power-of-two pixel grid. Using the present invention with 6 sample multisampling gives the same visual antialiasing quality as 8 samples using a prior art technique but uses less memory. A non-power-of-two equally spaced sample from a conventional grid of size N×N, where N is 12 can be chosen using the present invention. A scan conversion to determine the set of pixels covered by a polygon is performed in two parts. According to one embodiment, the present invention can multiply and divide by “N” in order to multisample an image using samples per pixel chosen from a N×N sub-sample grid, where “N” is not necessarily a power of 2. The present invention performs the divide by “N” step, where the step is achieved using a quick divide by 3 or 12 technique.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 4, 2007Publication date: December 27, 2007Applicant: ATI Technologies ULCInventors: Mark Leather, Eric Demers
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Patent number: 7307640Abstract: A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. The system includes a graphics and audio processor including a 3D graphics pipeline and an audio digital signal processor. Emboss style effects are created using fully pipelined hardware including two distinct dot-product computation units that perform a scaled model view matrix multiply without requiring the Normal input vector and which also compute dot-products between the Binormal and Tangent vectors and a light direction vector in parallel. The resulting texture coordinate displacements are provided to texture mapping hardware that performs a texture mapping operation providing texture combining in one pass. The disclosed pipelined arrangement efficiently provides interesting embossed style image effects such as raised and lowered patterns on surfaces.Type: GrantFiled: April 15, 2005Date of Patent: December 11, 2007Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Eric Demers, Mark M. Leather, Mark G. Segal
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Patent number: 7280119Abstract: The embodiments of the present invention are a method and apparatus to perform anti-aliasing using multi-sampling on a non-power-of-two pixel grid. Using the present invention with 6 sample multisampling gives the same visual antialiasing quality as 8 samples using a prior art technique but uses less memory. A non-power-of-two equally spaced sample from a conventional grid of size N×N, where N is 12 can be chosen using the present invention. A scan conversion to determine the set of pixels covered by a polygon is performed in two parts. According to one embodiment, the present invention can multiply and divide by “N” in order to multisample an image using samples per pixel chosen from a N×N sub-sample grid, where “N” is not necessarily a power of 2. The present invention performs the divide by “N” step, where the step is achieved using a quick divide by 3 or 12 technique.Type: GrantFiled: February 13, 2004Date of Patent: October 9, 2007Assignee: ATI Technologies Inc.Inventors: Mark M. Leather, Eric Demers
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Publication number: 20070211475Abstract: A light projector accessory is used in combination with a recessed lighting fixture. The accessory includes one or more lenses, one or more gobo templates, a suitable attachment for the accessory to be attached to a recessed light fixture, and a focusing mechanism for the projected image from the gobo.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 2, 2007Publication date: September 13, 2007Inventors: Laura Sevack, Lloyd Sevack, Mario Viscusi, Costa Dampollas, Eric Demers, Julius Posch
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Patent number: 7109992Abstract: A graphics processing circuit includes a line end generation circuit operative to generate line aligned end cap data in response to primitive data; and a rasterizer, coupled to the line end generation circuit, operative to generate pixel data representing a line to be rendered, the pixel data including the line aligned end cap data. A graphics processing method includes receiving primitive data for a line to be rendered, the primitive data including start endpoint data and stop endpoint data, determining the height and width of the line in screen space, determining line end cap orientation with respect to the line to be rendered, and determining vertices that define the line to be rendered, wherein the vertices define end caps aligned with the line to be rendered.Type: GrantFiled: November 27, 2002Date of Patent: September 19, 2006Assignee: ATI Technologies Inc.Inventors: Eric Demers, Robert S. Mace