Serial pixel processing with storage for overlapping texel data
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsTyson J. Bergland, Abdulkadir U. Diril, Anthony P. Delaurier
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Abstract
Techniques relating to serial processing of pixels in a texture processing pipeline. In some embodiments, the pipeline receives pixel data for a set of pixels in parallel but processes the pixels in the set serially in a pipelined fashion. In some embodiments, the pipeline includes a stage configured to retain texel data for use by a subsequently processed pixel. They may allow overlapping texels to be fetched once for the set of pixels rather than multiple times for different pixels in the set. In some embodiments, the pipeline uses a selected ordering of serial processing for the pixels, where the ordering increases the potential for texel overlap, relative to one or more other orderings.
Claims20
An apparatus, comprising:
- texture sample circuitry configured to retrieve texel data from a texture storage element for use in processing pixels in a frame of graphics data;
- a processing pipeline configured to:
- operate on a set of pixels, wherein information for the set of pixels is received by the processing pipeline in parallel, wherein the pipeline is configured to serially process the set of pixels such that data for different ones of the pixels in the set is processed in different pipeline stages of the pipeline during one or more clock cycles;
- and
- store texel information retrieved by the texture sampling circuitry from the texture storage element for a particular pixel at a stage of the processing pipeline, such that the stored texel information is available to process a subsequently processed pixel at the stage without accessing the texture storage element to retrieve the stored texel data for the subsequent pixel.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon design information that specifies a design of at least a portion of a hardware integrated circuit in a format recognized by a semiconductor fabrication system that is configured to use the design information to produce the circuit according to the design, including:
- texture sample circuitry configured to retrieve texel data from a texture storage element for use in processing pixels in a frame of graphics data;
- a processing pipeline configured to:
- operate on a set of pixels, wherein information for the set of pixels is received by the processing pipeline in parallel, wherein the pipeline is configured to process the set of pixels serially such that data for different ones of the pixels in the set is processed in different pipeline stages of the pipeline during one or more clock cycles;
- and
- store texel information retrieved by the texture sampling circuitry from the texture storage element for a particular pixel at a stage of the processing pipeline, such that the stored texel information is available to process a subsequently processed pixel at the stage without accessing the texture storage element to retrieve the stored texel data for the subsequent pixel.
A method, comprising:
- receiving by a texture processing pipeline, pixel information for a set of pixels in parallel;
- operating serially, by the texture processing pipeline, on the set of pixels, such that data for different ones of the pixels in the set is processed in different pipeline stages of the pipeline during one or more clock cycles;
- retrieving texel data from a texture storage element for a pixel of the set of pixels;
- storing the texel data at a stage of the texture processing pipeline;
- and
- using, by the texture processing pipeline, the stored texel data for a subsequently-processed pixel in the set of pixels without accessing the texture storage element to retrieve the stored texel data for the subsequently-processed pixel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.