Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080288901 | Formally deriving a minimal clock-gating scheme - The present invention provides a fully automatic method for obtaining a circuit having minimized power consumption due to clock-gating. A circuit design to be optimized is modified to a reduced power modified design and associated with a clock gating scheme. Verification tools compare the modified design with the original design to a predetermined trigger-events to determine if the modified design can be used. Further modifications may be made iteratively until an optimal design is achieved. | 11-20-2008 |
20090249035 | MULTI-CYCLE REGISTER FILE BYPASS - A method of reducing latency in instruction processing in a system, includes calculating a result of a first execution unit, storing the result of the first execution unit in a register file, forwarding the result of the first execution unit, through the bypass unit, to a second execution unit, the second execution unit conducting an instruction dependent on the result, forwarding the result of the first execution unit, from the bypass unit, to a third execution unit, without accessing the register file, the third execution unit conducting an instruction dependent on the result, wherein the execution units can extract the result of the first execution unit through the bypass unit until the new result is calculated, wherein after the new result is calculated, the execution units can access the result of the first execution unit through the register file. | 10-01-2009 |
20100228955 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED POWER MANAGEMENT OF MICROPROCESSORS BY INSTRUCTION GROUPING - A method of power gating a microprocessor having an instruction scheduling unit for receiving issued instructions from an instruction decode unit; an execution unit coupled to receive and send signals from and to the instruction scheduling unit; and a state machine located within the execution unit, the method comprises: obtaining a number of instructions per cycle being issued to the instruction scheduling unit; determining, subsequent to obtaining the number of instructions per cycle, if the number of instruction per cycle being issued to the instruction scheduling unit is less than a threshold level, and then determining if at least two of the instructions being issued to the instruction scheduling unit are independent of each other only when the instructions per cycle is less than the threshold level; determining when at least two of the instructions being issued to the instruction scheduling unit are independent of each other; and power gating the microprocessor to gate off power to idle macros with a signal from the state machine when the instructions are independent of each other without incurring significant loss of performance until an issue queue in the instruction scheduling unit is filled with instruction data. | 09-09-2010 |
20120105144 | Optimized Semiconductor Packaging in a Three-Dimensional Stack - A mechanism is provided for optimizing semiconductor packing in a three-dimensional (3D) very-large-scale integration (VLSI) device. The 3D VLSI device comprises a processor layer coupled, via a first set of coupling devices, to at least one signaling and input/output (I/O) layer. The 3D VLSI device further comprises a power delivery layer coupled, via a second set of coupling devices, to the processor layer. In the 3D VLSI device the power delivery layer is dedicated to only delivering power and does not provide data communication signals to the elements of the three-dimensional VLSI device, and the at least one signaling and input/output (I/O) layer is dedicated to only transmitting the data communication signals to and receiving the data communications signals from the processor layer and does not provide power to the elements of the processor layer. | 05-03-2012 |
20120105145 | Thermal Power Plane for Integrated Circuits - A mechanism is provided for a thermal power plane that delivers power and constitutes minimal thermal resistance. The mechanism comprises a processor layer coupled, via a first set of coupling devices, to a signaling and input/output (I/O) layer and a power delivery layer coupled, via a second set of coupling devices, to the processor layer. In the mechanism, the power delivery layer is dedicated to only delivering power and does not provide data communication signals to the elements of the mechanism. In the mechanism, the power delivery layer comprises a plurality of conductors, a plurality of insulating materials, one or more ground planes, and a plurality of through laminate vias. In the mechanism, the signaling and input/output (I/O) layer is dedicated to only transmitting the data communication signals to and receiving the data communications signals from the processor layer and does not provide power to the elements of the processor layer. | 05-03-2012 |
20120106074 | Heat Sink Integrated Power Delivery and Distribution for Integrated Circuits - A mechanism is provided for integrated power delivery and distribution via a heat sink. The mechanism comprises a processor layer coupled to a signaling and input/output (I/O) layer via a first set of coupling devices and a heat sink coupled to the processor layer via a second set of coupling devices. In the mechanism, the heat sink comprises a plurality of grooves on one face, where each groove provides either a path for power or a path for ground to be delivered to the processor layer. In the mechanism, the heat sink is dedicated to only delivering power and does not provide data communication signals to the elements of the mechanism and the signaling and I/O layer is dedicated to only transmitting the data communication signals to and receiving the data communications signals from the processor layer and does not provide power to the elements of the processor layer. | 05-03-2012 |
20120147559 | INTEGRATED CIRCUIT PACKAGE CONNECTED TO AN OPTICAL DATA TRANSMISSION MEDIUM USING A COOLANT - An integrated circuit coupling device includes an integrated circuit package; and an optical data transmission medium connected to the integrated circuit package, and comprising a movable coolant, adapted to remove heat from the integrated circuit package, in operation. | 06-14-2012 |
20120148187 | INTEGRATED CIRCUIT PACKAGE CONNECTED TO A DATA TRANSMISSION MEDIUM - An integrated circuit coupling device includes an integrated circuit package with N integrated circuit layers (L | 06-14-2012 |
20120151429 | MULTISTAGE, HYBRID SYNTHESIS PROCESSING FACILITATING INTEGRATED CIRCUIT LAYOUT - Multistage synthesis of hardware function operation descriptions is provided, which facilitates placement of logic cells in an integrated circuit design layout, and includes: parsing hardware function operation descriptions of a circuit to identify multiple instantiations of a type of logic function; performing, without shape restriction, a first synthesis on each logic function type identified as having multiple instantiations and producing an irregular-shaped logic unit layout for that logic function type; establishing an irregular-shaped blocking mask corresponding to a respective irregular-shaped logic unit layout produced by the first synthesis; creating a partial circuit layout by placing each irregular-shaped blocking mask multiple times corresponding to the multiple instantiations of the respective logic function type; and performing, employing the partial circuit layout, a second synthesis on the balance of the hardware function operation descriptions of the circuit outside the multiple instantiations of the logic function type. | 06-14-2012 |
20120189243 | TRANSFERRING HEAT THROUGH AN OPTICAL LAYER OF INTEGRATED CIRCUITRY - An integrated circuitry structure includes at least first and second regions. An optical layer includes optical waveguides. A heat-conductive material transfers heat from at least the second region through the optical layer to a heat sink. | 07-26-2012 |
20120290999 | Optimized Semiconductor Packaging in a Three-Dimensional Stack - A mechanism is provided for optimizing semiconductor packing in a three-dimensional (3D) very-large-scale integration (VLSI) device. The 3D VLSI device comprises a processor layer coupled, via a first set of coupling devices, to at least one signaling and input/output (I/O) layer. The 3D VLSI device further comprises a power delivery layer coupled, via a second set of coupling devices, to the processor layer. In the 3D VLSI device the power delivery layer is dedicated to only delivering power and does not provide data communication signals to the elements of the three-dimensional VLSI device, and the at least one signaling and input/output (I/O) layer is dedicated to only transmitting the data communication signals to and receiving the data communications signals from the processor layer and does not provide power to the elements of the processor layer. | 11-15-2012 |
20120303991 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED POWER MANAGEMENT OF MICROPROCESSORS BY INSTRUCTION GROUPING - A method of power gating a microprocessor having an instruction scheduling unit for receiving issued instructions from an instruction decoder; an execution unit receiving and sending signals from and to the instruction scheduling unit; and a state machine. The method comprises: obtaining a number of instructions per cycle being issued to the instruction scheduling unit; determining, if the number of instruction per cycle being issued to the instruction scheduling unit is less than a threshold level, and then determining if at least two of the instructions being issued to the instruction scheduling unit are independent of each other only when the instructions per cycle is less than the threshold level; determining when at least two of the instructions being issued to the instruction scheduling unit are independent of each other; and power gating the microprocessor to gate off power to idle macros with a signal from the state machine. | 11-29-2012 |
20130138978 | Charge Recycling Between Power Domains of Integrated Circuits - A mechanism is provided for efficiently recycling a charge from a power domain that is discharging. A side of a discharging power domain normally coupled to a voltage supply is disconnected from the voltage supply. The side of the precharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply is currently disconnected from the voltage supply. The side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply is connected to a side of the precharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply. A side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to the ground is disconnected from ground. The side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to ground is connected to the voltage supply, thereby precharging the precharging power domain with the charge from the discharging power domain that would normally he lost due to leakage. | 05-30-2013 |
20130227249 | Three-Dimensional Permute Unit for a Single-Instruction Multiple-Data Processor - A three-dimensional (3D) permute unit for a single-instruction-multiple-data stacked processor includes a first vector permute subunit and a second vector permute subunit. The first and second vector permute subunits are arranged in different layers of a 3D chip package. The vector permute subunits are each configured to process a portion of at least two input vectors. A first contact sub-field of the first vector permute subunit is configured to connect output ports of a first crossbar of the first vector permute subunit, holding an intermediate result of the first vector permute subunit, to a second contact sub-field of the second vector permute subunit. A first contact sub-field of the second vector permute subunit is configured to connect output ports of a first crossbar of the second vector permute subunit, holding an intermediate result of the second vector permute subunit, to a second contact sub-field of the first vector permute subunit. | 08-29-2013 |
20130346729 | PIPELINING OUT-OF-ORDER INSTRUCTIONS - Systems, methods and computer program product provide for pipelining out-of-order instructions. Embodiments comprise an instruction reservation station for short instructions of a short latency type and long instructions of a long latency type, an issue queue containing at least two short instructions of a short latency type, which are to be chained to match a latency of a long instruction of a long latency type, a register file, at least one execution pipeline for instructions of a short latency type and at least one execution pipeline for instructions of a long latency type; wherein results of the at least one execution pipeline for instructions of the short latency type are written to the register file, preserved in an auxiliary buffer, or forwarded to inputs of said execution pipelines. Data of the auxiliary buffer are written to the register file. | 12-26-2013 |
20140082386 | Charge Recycling Between Power Domains of Integrated Circuits - A mechanism is provided for efficiently recycling a charge from a power domain that is discharging. A side of a discharging power domain normally coupled to a voltage supply is disconnected from the voltage supply. The side of the precharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply is currently disconnected from the voltage supply. The side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply is connected to a side of the precharging power domain normally coupled to the voltage supply. A side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to the ground is disconnected from ground. The side of the discharging power domain normally coupled to ground is connected to the voltage supply, thereby precharging the precharging power domain with the charge from the discharging power domain that would normally be lost due to leakage. | 03-20-2014 |
20140095121 | TRANSFERRING HEAT THROUGH AN OPTICAL LAYER OF INTEGRATED CIRCUITRY - A method in a computer-aided design system for generating a functional design model of an integrated circuitry structure including generating a functional representation of at least first and second regions of the integrated circuitry structure, generating a functional representation of an optical layer comprising optical waveguides, and generating a functional representation of a heat-conductive material for transferring heat from at least the second region through the optical layer to a heat sink. | 04-03-2014 |
20150039862 | TECHNIQUES FOR INCREASING INSTRUCTION ISSUE RATE AND REDUCING LATENCY IN AN OUT-OF-ORDER PROCESSOR - A technique for operating a processor includes storing a first result to a writeback buffer, in response to a first execution unit of the processor attempting to write the first result of a first completed instruction to a register file of the processor at a same processor time as a second execution unit of the processor is attempting to write a second result of a second completed instruction to the register file. The writeback buffer is positioned in a dataflow between the first execution unit and the register file. A buffer full indicator logic is used to detect that the writeback buffer is unavailable. A buffer unavailable signal is transmitted, from the buffer full indicator logic, in response to detecting the writeback buffer is unavailable. In response to receiving the buffer unavailable signal, a buffer retrieving logic writes the first result from the writeback buffer to the register file. | 02-05-2015 |
20150221575 | TRANSFERRING HEAT THROUGH AN OPTICAL LAYER OF INTEGRATED CIRCUITRY - A computer program product or hardware description language (“HDL”) design structure in a computer-aided design system for generating a functional design model of an integrated circuitry structure including generating a functional representation of at least first and second regions of the integrated circuitry structure, generating a functional representation of an optical layer comprising optical waveguides, and generating a functional representation of a heat-conductive material for transferring heat from at least the second region through the optical layer to a heat sink. | 08-06-2015 |
20160070840 | INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DESIGN CHANGES USING THROUGH-SILICON VIAS - A method for adding an electrical interconnection within a three-dimensional integrated circuit (3-D IC) is disclosed. The method may include creating, within a design file of a 3-D IC that specifies a layout for a first chip of the 3-D IC, design data corresponding to a set of through-silicon via (TSV) reservation areas. The method may also include receiving an engineering change order (ECO) and releasing, in response to the ECO, at least one TSV reservation area for reuse. The method may also include adding, by re-using at least one TSV reservation area, an electrical interconnection within the design file of the first chip of the 3-D IC. | 03-10-2016 |
20160071783 | THROUGH-SILICON VIA ACCESS DEVICE FOR INTEGRATED CIRCUITS - A through-silicon via access device (TSVAD) for establishing an electrical connection to a through-silicon via (TSV) located in a planar stack of semiconductor chips is disclosed. The TSVAD may include a switching circuit, having a conductive pad terminal, a TSV terminal, an input terminal coupled to a sending logic circuit, an output terminal coupled to a receiving logic circuit, and logic devices to, in response to control signals, couple the TSV terminal to the conductive pad terminal, in one configuration, and couple the TSV terminal to another terminal in another configuration. The TSVAD may also include a control circuit to generate control signals to cause an input selection circuit to drive a signal from the sending logic circuit onto the input terminal, and to cause an output selection circuit to drive a logic signal from the output terminal to the receiving logic circuit. | 03-10-2016 |
20160071786 | THROUGH-SILICON VIA ACCESS DEVICE FOR INTEGRATED CIRCUITS - A through-silicon via access device (TSVAD) for establishing an electrical connection to a through-silicon via (TSV) located in a planar stack of semiconductor chips is disclosed. The TSVAD may include a switching circuit, having a conductive pad terminal, a TSV terminal, an input terminal coupled to a sending logic circuit, an output terminal coupled to a receiving logic circuit, and logic devices to, in response to control signals, couple the TSV terminal to the conductive pad terminal, in one configuration, and couple the TSV terminal to another terminal in another configuration. The TSVAD may also include a control circuit to generate control signals to cause an input selection circuit to drive a signal from the sending logic circuit onto the input terminal, and to cause an output selection circuit to drive a logic signal from the output terminal to the receiving logic circuit. | 03-10-2016 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090198758 | METHOD FOR SIGN-EXTENSION IN A MULTI-PRECISION MULTIPLIER - A method for implementing sign extension within a multi-precision multiplier is described. The method includes receiving a first input within a multiplier core of the multiplier, receiving a second input within the multiplier core, and creating partial products in the multiplier core using the first and second inputs. The method also includes summing up the partial products in a partial product reduction tree in the multiplier core. The method also includes performing sign extension within the partial product reduction tree of the multiplier core by adding a value to a partial product of the partial product reduction tree. The method further includes computing an output from the partial product reduction tree, the output including a final product of the first and second inputs signed extended to a desired width. | 08-06-2009 |
20090198974 | METHODS FOR CONFLICT-FREE, COOPERATIVE EXECUTION OF COMPUTATIONAL PRIMITIVES ON MULTIPLE EXECUTION UNITS - A method for executing multiple computational primitives is provided in accordance with exemplary embodiments. A first computational unit and at least a second computational unit cooperate to execute multiple computational primitives. The first computational unit independently computes other computational primitives. By virtue of arbitration for shared source operand buses or shared result buses, availability of the first and second computational units needed to execute cooperatively the multiple computational primitives is assured by a process of reservation as used for a computational primitive executed on a dedicated computational unit. | 08-06-2009 |
20100017635 | ZERO INDICATION FORWARDING FOR FLOATING POINT UNIT POWER REDUCTION - A method, system and computer program product for reducing power consumption when processing mathematical operations. Power may be reduced in processor hardware devices that receive one or more operands from an execution unit that executes instructions. A circuit detects when at least one operand of multiple operands is a zero operand, prior to the operand being forwarded to an execution component for completing a mathematical operation. When at least one operand is a zero operand or at least one operand is “unordered”, a flag is set that triggers a gating of a clock signal. The gating of the clock signal disables one or more processing stages and/or devices, which perform the mathematical operation. Disabling the stages and/or devices enables computing the correct result of the mathematical operation on a reduced data path. When a device(s) is disabled, the device may be powered off until the device is again required by subsequent operations. | 01-21-2010 |
20110131391 | Integrated Circuit with Stacked Computational Units and Configurable through Vias - A technique for manufacturing a three-dimensional integrated circuit includes stacking a memory unit on a first die that includes a first computational unit. In this case, the memory unit is included in a second die. A second computational unit that is included in a third die is stacked on the second die. Sets of vertical vias that extend through the first, second, and third dies are connected to connect components of the first and second computational units and the memory unit. Multiplexers of the first and second computational units are configured to selectively couple the components to different ones of the sets of vertical vias responsive to respective control words for each of the first and third dies. | 06-02-2011 |
20120284548 | Zero Indication Forwarding for Floating Point Unit Power Reduction - A method and system for reducing power consumption when processing mathematical operations. Power may be reduced in processor hardware devices that receive one or more operands from an execution unit that executes instructions. A circuit detects when at least one operand of multiple operands is a zero operand, prior to the operand being forwarded to an execution component for completing a mathematical operation. When at least one operand is a zero operand or at least one operand is “unordered”, a flag is set that triggers a gating of a clock signal. The gating of the clock signal disables one or more processing stages and/or devices, which perform the mathematical operation. Disabling the stages and/or devices enables computing the correct result of the mathematical operation on a reduced data path. When a device(s) is disabled, the device may be powered off until the device is again required by subsequent operations. | 11-08-2012 |