Increased scalability in the fragment shading pipeline
US7218291B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 13, 2004 |
| Grant date | May 15, 2007 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 13, 2026 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/80
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A fragment processor includes a fragment shader distributor, a fragment shader collector, and a plurality of fragment shader pipelines. Each fragment shader pipeline executes a fragment shader program on a segment of fragments. The plurality of fragment shader pipelines operate in parallel, executing the same or different fragment shader programs. The fragment shader distributor receives a stream of fragments from a rasterization unit and dispatches a portion of the stream of fragments to a selected fragment shader pipeline until the capacity of the selected fragment shader pipeline is reached. The fragment shader distributor then selects another fragment shader pipeline. The capacity of each of the fragment shader pipelines is limited by several different resources. As the fragment shader distributor dispatches fragments, it tracks the remaining available resources of the selected fragment shader pipeline. A fragment shader collector retrieves processed fragments from the plurality of fragment shader pipelines.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.