Shared virtual memory

US9588826B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Intel Corporation · US

Inventors

• Hu Chen · Beijing, CN
• Ying Gao · San Jose, US
• Xiaocheng Zhou · Beijing, CN
• Shoumeng Yan · Beijing, CN
• Peinan Zhang · San Jose, US
• Mohan Rajagopalan · Mountain View, US
• Jesse Fang · San Jose, US
• Avi Mendelson · Haifa, IL
• Bratin Saha · San Jose, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 10, 2014
• Grant date: Mar 7, 2017
• Expiry date: Dec 10, 2034

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F2212/657
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide a programming model for CPU-GPU platforms. In particular, embodiments of the invention provide a uniform programming model for both integrated and discrete devices. The model also works uniformly for multiple GPU cards and hybrid GPU systems (discrete and integrated). This allows software vendors to write a single application stack and target it to all the different platforms. Additionally, embodiments of the invention provide a shared memory model between the CPU and GPU. Instead of sharing the entire virtual address space, only a part of the virtual address space needs to be shared. This allows efficient implementation in both discrete and integrated settings.