GRAPHICS PROCESSING SYSTEM WITH POWER-GATING CONTROL FUNCTION, POWER-GATING CONTROL METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS THEREOF

• Main Authors: CHENG YU-JUNG, YANG CHIA-LIN, WANG PO-HAN
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 25.11.2010
• Subjects: CALCULATING; CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THIR OWNENERGY USE; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE

The invention relates to a power-gating control method for a graphics processing unit having a unified shader unit, which includes a plurality of shaders. The method includes the steps of: rendering a plurality of previous frames; calculating a first number of active shaders for rendering each previous frame, and a corresponding frame rate of each previous frame; determining a second number of active shaders for rendering a next frame immediately following the previous frame according to the first number of active shaders and the corresponding frame rate of each previous frame; and activating corresponding shaders through one or more power-gating control elements according to the second number of active shaders.