Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) Implementing a Plurality of Virtual GPUs

Patent №

US 9,727,385

Granted

2017-08-08

Filed 2012

Owner

APPLE INC.

Lab

AI components

1

hardware

Assignment

Recorded

Dataset

AIPD

2023_r1 edition

Application

13495597

Techniques and structures relating to virtual graphics processing units (VGPUs) are disclosed. A VGPU may appear to software as an independent hardware GPU. However, two or more VGPUs can be implemented on the same GPU through the use of control structures and by duplicating some (but not all) hardware elements of the GPU. For example, additional registers and storage space may be added in a GPU supporting multiple VGPUs. Different execution priorities may be set for tasks and threads that correspond to the different supported VGPUs. Memory address space for the VGPUs may also be managed, including use of virtual address space for different VGPUs. Halting and resuming execution of different VGPUs allows for fine-grained execution control in various embodiments.

AI hardwareG06F 9/5077G06T 1/20G06T 1/60

AI classification

AI hardware1.00
Vision0.01
Natural language0.01
Speech0.00
Evolutionary computation0.00
Machine learning0.00
Knowledge representation0.00
Planning0.00

Ownership

APPLE INC.

assignment · 283690259

Assignors

WANG, JAMES, DREBIN, ROBERT A.

On an employer assignment, the assignors are typically the inventors.

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