PRIORITY BASED CONTEXT PREEMPTION

• US 20150277981A1
• Filed: 03/27/2014
• Published: 10/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Nalluri, Hema C., Navale, Aditya, Doyle, Peter L., Ramadoss, Murali, Vembu, Balaji, Boles, Jeffery S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,396,032 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/20 Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses may prioritize the processing of high priority and low priority contexts submitted to a processing unit through separate high priority and low priority context submission ports. According to one embodiment, submission of a context to the low priority port causes contexts in progress to be preempted, whereas submission of a context to the high priority port causes contexts in progress to be paused.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a pipeline;

a first port to receive a context having a first priority;

a second port to receive a context having a second priority that is higher than the first priority;

a second priority context detection module to detect receipt of the context having the second priority at the second port; and

a pause module to pause a context in the pipeline after the second priority context detection module has detected the receipt of the context having the second priority at the second port.

2. The system of claim 1, further including on-die storage to store a state of at least one of the contexts, wherein the on-die storage and the processor are on a common die.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a restoration module to restore a paused context after the context having the second priority has been completed.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein at least one of the modules is implemented in software.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the pause module is implemented in hardware.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a preemption module to pre-empt a context in the pipeline after the context having the first priority has been submitted to the first port.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising a preemption restoration module to restore a context that has been pre-empted.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a pause restoration module to restore a context that has been paused.

9. The system of claim 1, comprising a three-dimensional (3D) graphics processor.

10. A method comprising:

submitting a first context to a first port dedicated to contexts having a first priority;

submitting the first context to a pipeline;

submitting a second context to a second port dedicated to contexts having a second priority; and

pausing the first context before it completes in the pipeline.

11. The method of claim 10, further including detecting the submission of the second context to the second port.

12. The method of claim 10, further including copying a state and unfinished work of the first context to on-die storage and then submitting the second context to the pipeline.

13. The method of claim 12, further including resuming the first context after the second context has been completed.

14. The method of claim 10, further including pre-empting a context in the pipeline after a context has been submitted to the first port.

15. At least one computer readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions which, if executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

submit a first context to a first port dedicated to contexts having a first priority;

submit the first context to a pipeline;

submit a second context to a second port dedicated to contexts having a second priority; and

pause the first context before it completes in the pipeline.

16. The at least one computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions, if executed, cause a computing device to detect the submission of the second context to the second port.

17. The at least one computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions, if executed, cause a computing device to copy a state and unfinished work of the first context to on-die storage and then submit the second context to the pipeline.

18. The at least one computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions, if executed, cause a computing device to resume the first context after the second context has been completed.

19. The at least one computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions, if executed, cause a computing device to pre-empt a context in the pipeline after a context has been submitted to the first port.

20. An apparatus comprising:

a first port to receive contexts of a first priority;

a second port to receive contexts of a second priority;

a pipeline to process contexts;

a context detection module to detect the submission of contexts to the ports;

a scheduler module to send contexts to the pipeline; and

a pause module to pause the pipeline processing of contexts received at the first port in favor of contexts received at the second port.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising on-die memory to store a state of at least one of the contexts.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising a restoration module to restore a context to the pipeline.

23. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising memory to store state information concerning contexts.

24. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising a graphical processing unit.

25. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising a paused context restore module to resume a paused context after the completion of a context submitted to the second port.