Ray Intersect Circuitry with Parallel Ray Testing

A method, comprising:

• executing, by graphics shader circuitry, a ray intersect instruction that indicates origin and direction information for a set of one or more rays in a graphics scene;
• traversing, by ray intersect circuitry in response to the ray intersect instruction, multiple nodes in a spatially organized acceleration data structure, wherein nodes of the data structure indicate coordinates corresponding to bounding regions in the graphics scene;
• testing, by the ray intersect circuitry in parallel, whether a ray in the set of rays intersects multiple different bounding regions indicated by a node of the data structure, using bounding region test circuitry during the traversal,
• determining, based on the traversing and testing, information specifying one or more graphics primitives intersected by respective rays in the set of one or more rays;
• and
• shading, by the graphics shader circuitry, shade the specified one or more graphics primitives based on intersecting rays.

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, wherein the design information specifies that the circuit includes:

• graphics shader circuitry configured to executing a ray intersect instruction that indicates origin and direction information for a set of one or more rays in a graphics scene;
• ray intersect circuitry configured to:
• traverse, in response to the ray intersect instruction, multiple nodes in a spatially organized acceleration data structure, wherein nodes of the data structure indicate coordinates corresponding to bounding regions in the graphics scene;
• test in parallel, using bounding region test circuitry during the traversal, whether a ray in the set of rays intersects multiple different bounding regions indicated by a node of the data structure;
• and
• wherein the circuit is configured to determine, based on the traversal and tests, information specifying one or more graphics primitives intersected by respective rays in the set of one or more rays;
• and
• wherein the graphics shader circuitry is configured to shade the specified one or more graphics primitives based on intersecting rays.