Nvidia patents API to let software control GPU register usage
Nvidia describes a method where software can tell a graphics processor exactly how many small memory slots, called registers, to assign to specific tasks. This allows the system to adjust resources dynamically for operations like matrix math, potentially improving how efficiently the chip runs complex calculations.
In the filing’s own words
Apparatuses, systems, and techniques including application programming interfaces (APIs), compilers, and instructions to allocate a number of registers per thread, to deallocate a number of allocated registers for a thread, and to allocate a number of registers per function. For example, a processor performs an API to indicate a number of registers to allocate to a thread when performing matrix multiplication operations on a graphics processing unit (GPU). As another example, a processor performs an API to indicate a number of registers to allocate to a function.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. One or more processors, comprising: circuitry to; in response to receiving an application programming interface (API) call, specify one or more identifiers of one or more instructions and a number of registers to be allocated to one or more threads to perform the one or more instructions for one or more operations; and generate the one or more threads to perform the one or more instructions including, at least in part, a dynamic allocation of the number of registers per instruction.
Facts
- Company
- Nvidia (NVIDIA Corporation)
- Official title
- Application programming interface to indicate a number of registers to be used by instructions
- Patent number
- US12748599B1
- Application number
- 17978049
- Filed
- Oct 31, 2022
- Granted
- Sep 29, 2026
- Inventors
- 13
- Claims
- 21
Classified under
G06F 9/3851 Physics & computingG06F 9/5016 Physics & computingG06F 9/30098 Physics & computingMore from Nvidia in Chips & hardware
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.