Architecture and instructions for accessing multi-dimensional formatted surface memory

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9519947-B2
Application number	US-89017110-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 24, 2010
Priority date	Sep 25, 2009
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for a program to access multi-dimensional formatted graphics surface memory. Multi-dimensional memory objects called “surfaces” stored in a user-specified data or pixel format and arranged in a graphics optimized layout are accessed by programs using surface instructions. A set of memory access instructions e.g., load, store, reduce, and atomic, referred to as surface instructions, may be used to access the surfaces. Coordinate bounds checking is performed with configurable clamping. Caching behavior may also be specified by the surface instructions. Data format conversion and packing to a specified storage format is supported for store, reduction, and atomic surface instructions. Data format conversion and unpacking from a specified storage format is supported for loads and atomic surface instructions.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for accessing multi-dimensional formatted surface memory by a program, comprising:
receiving a surface instruction that specifies an x-coordinate of a sample and a y-coordinate of the sample, wherein the sample is associated with a multi-dimensional formatted surface;
computing an address of a location in the multi-dimensional formatted surface memory based on the x-coordinate, the y-coordinate, and attributes of the multi-dimensional formatted su…

Assignees

• Nickolls John R
• Fahs Brian
• Nyland Lars
• Lindholm John Erik
• Johnson Richard Craig
• Nvidia Corp

Inventors

• Nickolls John R
• Fahs Brian
• Nyland Lars
• Lindholm John Erik
• Johnson Richard Craig

Classifications

• G06T1/60 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic