Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
MEMORY HIERARCHY-AWARE PROCESSING

Abstract:

Improvements to traditional schemes for storing data for processing tasks and for executing those processing tasks are disclosed. A set of data for which processing tasks are to be executed is processed through a hierarchy to distribute the data through various elements of a computer system. Levels of the hierarchy represent different types of memory or storage elements. Higher levels represent coarser portions of memory or storage elements and lower levels represent finer portions of memory or storage elements. Data proceeds through the hierarchy as "tasks" at different levels. Tasks at non-leaf nodes comprise tasks to subdivide data for storage in the finer granularity memories or storage units associated with a lower hierarchy level. Tasks at leaf nodes comprise processing work, such as a portion of a calculation. Two techniques for organizing the tasks in the hierarchy presented herein include a queue-based technique and a graph-based technique.