Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Thread switch for accesses to slow memory

Abstract:

A processing system suspends execution of a program thread based on an access latency required for a program thread to access memory. The processing system employs different memory modules having different memory technologies, located at different points in the processing system, and the like, or a combination thereof. The different memory modules therefore have different access latencies for memory transactions (e.g., memory reads and writes). When a program thread issues a memory transaction that results in an access to a memory module having a relatively long access latency (referred to as "slow" memory), the processor suspends execution of the program thread and releases processor resources used by the program thread. When the processor receives a response to the memory transaction from the memory module, the processor resumes execution of the suspended program thread.