Cooperative thread array granularity context switch during trap handling

US9804885B2 · 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: Sep 20, 2016
• Grant date: Oct 31, 2017
• Expiry date: Sep 20, 2036

Classification

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

Abstract

Techniques are provided for restoring threads within a processing core. The techniques include, for a first thread group included in a plurality of thread groups, executing a context restore routine to restore from a memory a first portion of a context associated with the first thread group, determining whether the first thread group completed an assigned function, and, if the first thread group completed the assigned function, then exiting the context restore routine, or if the first thread group did not complete the assigned function, then executing one or more operations associated with a trap handler routine.