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US 7,600,155 B1Granted
Apparatus and method for monitoring and debugging a graphics processing unit
AssigneeNVIDIA Corporation
InventorsJohn R. Nickolls, Roger L. Allen, Brian K. Cabral, Brett W. Coon, Robert C. Keller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system has a graphics processing unit with a processor to monitor selected criteria and circuitry to initiate the storage of execution state information when the selected criteria reaches a specified state. A memory stores execution state information. A central processing unit executes a debugging program to analyze the execution state information.
Claims20
A graphics system, comprising:
- a graphics processing unit (GPU) with:
- a processor to monitor selected criteria,
- circuitry to invoke a GPU page fault to initiate the storage of execution state information when the selected criteria reaches a specified state a initiate a page fault having a page fault address selected to indicate a debug request;
- a memory to store execution state information;
- a central processing unit (CPU) to execute a debugging program to analyze the execution state information with the CPU recognizing a page fault address of the page fault initiated by the GPU as a request for a debug operation.
2 more elements
A graphics processing unit, comprising:
- a processor to monitor selected criteria indicative of a debug event;
- a host interface to coordinate the storage of execution state information in response to the selected criteria being satisfied;
- the graphics processing unit invoking a graphics processing unit page fault to initiate the storage of the execution state information and generate a page fault having a page fault address selected to indicate a debug request with the host interface communicating the page fault to a central processing unit to request a debug operation.
A method of operating a graphics processing unit, comprising:
- monitoring graphics processing unit performance in accordance with selected criteria;
- saving graphics processing unit execution state information in response to satisfaction of the selected criteria;
- invoking a graphics processing unit page fault having a selected page fault address as a debug request and communicating the page fault to a central processing unit;
- and
- debugging the graphics processing unit execution state information.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.