Patent · US Active

Data structure and method for sorting using heap-supernodes

US7424474B2 · kind B2 · utility

1Cited by
1References
17Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 17, 2005
Grant dateSep 9, 2008
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 3, 2026

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S707/99945
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An improved data structure is provided by modifying a public-domain data structure known as a “heap”. When these improvements are applied, the resultant data structure is known as a “pile.” This invention further described a pipelined hardware implementation of a pile. Piles offer many advantages over heaps: they allow for fast, pipelined hardware implementations with increased throughput, making piles practical for a wide variety of new applications; they remove the requirement to track and update the last position in the heap; they reduce the number of memory reads accesses required during a delete operation; they require only ordinary, inexpensive RAM for storage in a fast, pipelined implementation; and they allow a random mixture of back-to-back insert, remove, and swap operations to be performed without stalling the pipeline.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.