Cooperative thread array granularity context switch during trap handling

US9448837B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• NVIDIA Corporation · US

Inventors

• Gerald F. Luiz · Los Gatos, US
• Philip Alexander Cuadra · San Francisco, US
• Luke Durant · San Jose, US
• Shirish Gadre · Fremont, US
• Robert Ohannessian · Austin, US
• Lacky V. Shah · Los Altos, US
• Nicholas Wang · Saratoga, US
• Arthur Merlin Danskin · Los Angeles, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 15, 2013
• Grant date: Sep 20, 2016
• Expiry date: Oct 3, 2034

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F9/485
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Techniques are provided for restoring thread groups in a cooperative thread array (CTA) within a processing core. Each thread group in the CTA is launched to execute a context restore routine. Each thread group, executes the context restore routine to restore from a memory a first portion of context associated with the thread group, and determines whether the thread group completed an assigned function prior to executing the context restore routine. If the thread group completed an assigned function prior to executing the context restore routine, then the thread group exits the context restore routine. If the thread group did not complete the assigned function prior to executing the context restore routine, then the thread group executes one or more operations associated with a trap handler routine. One advantage of the disclosed techniques is that the trap handling routine operates efficiently in parallel processors.