Method and apparatus for coherent device initialization and access
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsPaul M. Stillwell, JR., Nagabhushan Chitlur, Dennis Bradford, Linda Rankin
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for enabling usage of an accelerator device in a processor socket is herein described. A set of inter-processor messages is utilized to initialize a configuration/memory space of the accelerator device. As an example, a first set of inter-processor interrupts (IPIs) is sent to indicate a base address of a memory space and a second set of IPIs is sent to indicate a size of the memory space. Furthermore, similar methods and apparatus' are herein described for dynamic reconfiguration of an accelerator device in a processor socket.
Claims25
An apparatus comprising:
- an accelerator device to be electrically coupled in a processor socket of a multi-processor socket computer system, wherein the accelerator device is to interface with a system memory in the computer system through a host bus, and wherein the accelerator device is capable of being dynamically re-configured during runtime of the computer system from accelerating a first processing task to accelerating a second processing task.
An article of manufacture including program code which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform the operations of:
- determining an identifier for an accelerator device in a processor slot of a multi-processor computer system;
- and
- transmitting a plurality of inter-processor messages to the accelerator device based on the identifier to initialize the accelerator device.
A system comprising:
- a physical processor electrically coupled in a first processor socket and an accelerator device electrically coupled in a second processor socket;
- and
- a memory device coupled to the plurality of sockets, the memory device to hold initialization code;
- wherein the physical processor, in response to executing the initialization code, is to transmit a set of socket-to-socket messages to the second processor socket to initialize the accelerator device.
A method comprising:
- determining a processor socket of a plurality of processor sockets in a computer system that is associated with an accelerator device during boot of the computer system;
- executing initialization code on a physical processor associated with another socket of the plurality of processor sockets in the computer system;
- and
- transmitting a plurality of inter-processor messages from the physical processor to the socket associated with the accelerator device to initialize a memory space to be associated with the accelerator device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.