Patents by Inventor Tad Litwiller

Tad Litwiller 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: 11776085
    Abstract: A processing system includes a graphics pipeline that executes a first shader of a first type and a second shader of a second type. In some cases, the first shader is a geometry shader and the second shader is a pixel shader. The processing system also includes buffers that hold primitives generated by the first shader and provide the primitives to the second shader. The processing system also includes a primitive hub that monitors fullness of the buffers. Launching of waves from the first shader is throttled based on the fullness of the buffers. A shader processor input (SPI) selectively throttles the waves launched by the geometry shader based on a signal from the primitive hub indicating the fullness, an indication of relative resource usage of geometry waves and pixel waves in the graphics pipeline, or an indication of lifetimes of the geometry waves.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2023
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Nishank Pathak, Randy Wayne Ramsey, Tad Litwiller, Rex Eldon McCrary
  • Patent number: 11532066
    Abstract: A graphics pipeline reduces the number of tessellation factors written to and read from a graphics memory. A hull shader stage of the graphics pipeline detects whether at least a threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches are the same and, in some embodiments, whether at least the threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches have a same value that either indicates that the plurality of patches are to be culled or that the plurality of patches are to be passed to a tessellator stage of the graphics pipeline.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2022
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Mangesh P. Nijasure, Tad Litwiller, Todd Martin, Nishank Pathak
  • Publication number: 20220188963
    Abstract: A processing system includes a graphics pipeline that executes a first shader of a first type and a second shader of a second type. In some cases, the first shader is a geometry shader and the second shader is a pixel shader. The processing system also includes buffers that hold primitives generated by the first shader and provide the primitives to the second shader. The processing system also includes a primitive hub that monitors fullness of the buffers. Launching of waves from the first shader is throttled based on the fullness of the buffers. A shader processor input (SPI) selectively throttles the waves launched by the geometry shader based on a signal from the primitive hub indicating the fullness, an indication of relative resource usage of geometry waves and pixel waves in the graphics pipeline, or an indication of lifetimes of the geometry waves.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 16, 2020
    Publication date: June 16, 2022
    Inventors: Nishank PATHAK, Randy Wayne RAMSEY, Tad LITWILLER, Rex Eldon MCCRARY
  • Patent number: 11210757
    Abstract: A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a packet management component that automatically aggregates data from input packets. In response to determining that a received first input packet does not indicate a send condition, and in response to determining that a generated output packet would be smaller than an output size threshold, the packet management component aggregates data corresponding to the first input packet with data corresponding to a second input packet stored at a packet buffer. In response to determining that a received third input packet indicates a send condition, the packet management component sends the aggregated data to a compute unit in an output packet and performs an operation indicated by the send condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Todd Martin, Tad Litwiller, Nishank Pathak, Mangesh P. Nijasure
  • Publication number: 20210374898
    Abstract: A graphics pipeline reduces the number of tessellation factors written to and read from a graphics memory. A hull shader stage of the graphics pipeline detects whether at least a threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches are the same and, in some embodiments, whether at least the threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches have a same value that either indicates that the plurality of patches are to be culled or that the plurality of patches are to be passed to a tessellator stage of the graphics pipeline.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 12, 2021
    Publication date: December 2, 2021
    Inventors: Mangesh P. NIJASURE, Tad LITWILLER, Todd MARTIN, Nishank PATHAK
  • Publication number: 20210183004
    Abstract: A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes a packet management component that automatically aggregates data from input packets. In response to determining that a received first input packet does not indicate a send condition, and in response to determining that a generated output packet would be smaller than an output size threshold, the packet management component aggregates data corresponding to the first input packet with data corresponding to a second input packet stored at a packet buffer. In response to determining that a received third input packet indicates a send condition, the packet management component sends the aggregated data to a compute unit in an output packet and performs an operation indicated by the send condition.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2019
    Publication date: June 17, 2021
    Inventors: Todd MARTIN, Tad LITWILLER, Nishank PATHAK, Mangesh P. NIJASURE
  • Publication number: 20210150658
    Abstract: A graphics pipeline reduces the number of tessellation factors written to and read from a graphics memory. A hull shader stage of the graphics pipeline detects whether at least a threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches are the same and, in some embodiments, whether at least the threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches have a same value that either indicates that the plurality of patches are to be culled or that the plurality of patches are to be passed to a tessellator stage of the graphics pipeline.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2019
    Publication date: May 20, 2021
    Inventors: Mangesh P. NIJASURE, Tad LITWILLER, Todd MARTIN, Nishank PATHAK
  • Patent number: 11010862
    Abstract: A graphics pipeline reduces the number of tessellation factors written to and read from a graphics memory. A hull shader stage of the graphics pipeline detects whether at least a threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches are the same and, in some embodiments, whether at least the threshold percentage of the tessellation factors for a thread group of patches have a same value that either indicates that the plurality of patches are to be culled or that the plurality of patches are to be passed to a tessellator stage of the graphics pipeline.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: May 18, 2021
    Assignee: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Mangesh P. Nijasure, Tad Litwiller, Todd Martin, Nishank Pathak