Patents by Inventor Nicolas X. Pena

Nicolas X. Pena 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: 10282169
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed relating to floating-point operations with down-conversion. In some embodiments, a floating-point unit is configured to perform fused multiply-addition operations based on first and second different instruction types. In some embodiments, the first instruction type specifies result in the first floating-point format and the second instruction type specifies fused multiply addition of input operands in the first floating-point format to generate a result in a second, lower-precision floating-point format. For example, the first format may be a 32-bit format and the second format may be a 16-bit format. In some embodiments, the floating-point unit includes rounding circuitry, exponent circuitry, and/or increment circuitry configured to generate signals for the second instruction type in the same pipeline stage as for the first instruction type. In some embodiments, disclosed techniques may reduce the number of pipeline stages included in the floating-point circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 7, 2019
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Liang-Kai Wang, Terence M. Potter, Andrew M. Havlir, Yu Sun, Nicolas X. Pena, Xiao-Long Wu, Christopher A. Burns
  • Publication number: 20170293470
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed relating to floating-point operations with down-conversion. In some embodiments, a floating-point unit is configured to perform fused multiply-addition operations based on first and second different instruction types. In some embodiments, the first instruction type specifies result in the first floating-point format and the second instruction type specifies fused multiply addition of input operands in the first floating-point format to generate a result in a second, lower-precision floating-point format. For example, the first format may be a 32-bit format and the second format may be a 16-bit format. In some embodiments, the floating-point unit includes rounding circuitry, exponent circuitry, and/or increment circuitry configured to generate signals for the second instruction type in the same pipeline stage as for the first instruction type. In some embodiments, disclosed techniques may reduce the number of pipeline stages included in the floating-point circuitry.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 6, 2016
    Publication date: October 12, 2017
    Inventors: Liang-Kai Wang, Terence M. Potter, Andrew M. Havlir, Yu Sun, Nicolas X. Pena, Xiao-Long Wu, Christopher A. Burns