US 12,299,768 B2
Multicore master/slave communications
Michael John Livesley, Hertfordshire (GB); and Ian King, Hertfordshire (GB)
Assigned to Imagination Technologies Limited, Kings Langley (GB)
Filed by Imagination Technologies Limited, Kings Langley (GB)
Filed on Mar. 28, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/127,579.
Claims priority of application No. 2204508 (GB), filed on Mar. 30, 2022; and application No. 2204510 (GB), filed on Mar. 30, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0410243 A1, Dec. 21, 2023
Int. Cl. G06T 1/20 (2006.01); G06F 9/48 (2006.01); G06F 15/80 (2006.01)
CPC G06T 1/20 (2013.01) [G06F 9/4881 (2013.01); G06F 15/80 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A graphics processing unit comprising a plurality of cores, wherein each core of the plurality of cores comprises a slave unit configured to manage the execution of image rendering tasks within the core, and wherein at least one of the plurality of cores further comprises a master unit configured to:
receive a set of image rendering tasks;
assign a first subset of the image rendering tasks to a first core of the plurality of cores;
assign a second subset of the image rendering tasks to a second core of the plurality of cores;
transmit the first subset of the image rendering tasks to the slave unit of the first core; and
transmit the second subset of the image rendering tasks to the slave unit of the second core;
wherein:
the slave unit of the first core is configured to transmit to the master unit a first credit notification when a task in the first subset of the image rendering tasks has been processed,
the slave unit of the second core is configured to transmit to the master unit a second credit notification when a task in the second subset of the image rendering tasks has been processed; and
the master unit is configured to:
store a credit number for each of the first and second cores,
adjust the credit number of the first core by a first amount for each task in the first subset of the image rendering tasks when the master unit assigns the first subset of the image rendering tasks to the first core,
adjust the credit number of the second core by the first amount for each task in the second subset of the image rendering tasks when the master unit assigns the second subset of the image rendering tasks to the second core,
adjust the credit number of the first core by a second amount when the master unit receives the first credit notification, and
adjust the credit number of the second core by the second amount when the master unit receives the second credit notification, wherein one of the first and second amounts is positive, and the other is negative.