NVIDIA Corporation
Techniques for efficiently organizing and accessing compressible data

Abstract:

In various embodiments, a memory interface unit organizes data within a memory tile to facilitate efficient memory accesses. In an embodiment, a memory tile represents a portion of memory that holds multiple chunks of data, where each chunk is stored either in a non-compressed or in a smaller compressed data format. In an embodiment, the tile is organized to pack multiple compressed chunks together so that multiple compressed chunks can be retrieved from memory with a single read access. In another embodiment, the tile is organized to store redundant copies of compressed chunks so that a compressed chunk can be quickly decompressed within a tile without having to relocate other compressed chunks in the tile. Additional embodiments are further disclosed for allowing efficient accesses to both compressed and non-compressed data.