Scalable and unified compute system

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a hardware-based shader pipe array configured to accept texture instructions for a specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items and to generate output data;

a hardware-based level one texture cache system configured to store the texture output data; and

a hardware-based texture mapping unit configured to:

retrieve texture output data from the level one texture cache system and generate formatted accumulated interpolation data, wherein

the texture mapping unit further comprises:

a pre-formatter module configured to accept texel data and generate normalized fixed point texel data;

an interpolator module configured to perform an interpolation on the normalized fixed point texel data from the pre-formatter module and generate re-normalized floating point texel data;

an accumulator module configured to accumulate floating point texel data from the interpolator module; and

a format module configured to convert texel data from the accumulator module into a standard floating point representation.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the shader pipe array is configured to accept ALU, load/store, and output instructions.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a redundant shader pipe array configured to process shader pipe data destined for a defective shader pipe of the shader pipe array.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the shader pipe array comprises a shader pipe block.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the shader pipe block is configured to contain one or more shader pipes.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the level one texture cache system is configured to read and write to a level two cache system.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the interpolator module is configured to perform one or more interpolations in order to achieve at least one of:

a bilinear texture filtering;

a trilinear texture filtering; and

an anisotropic texture filtering.

8. A method for computing, comprising:

receiving, using a processor, a set of texture requests for a specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

generating, using the processor, a data set of addresses based on a shader program instruction for the specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

retrieving, using the processor, stored texel data from a level one cache system; and

calculating, using the processor, a formatted accumulated interpolation based on the retrieved texel data and an originating shader instruction, further comprising:

receiving floating point texel data;

generating normalized fixed point texel data from the floating point texel data;

performing an interpolation on the normalized fixed point texel data;

generating re-normalized floating point texel data;

accumulating re-normalized texel data; and

formatting the accumulated re-normalized texel data into a standard floating point representation.

9. The computing method of claim 8 , further comprising:

processing shader pipe data destined for a defective shader pipe.

10. The computing method of claim 8 , further comprising:

reading from and writing to a level two cache system from the level one texture cache system.

11. The computing method of claim 8 , wherein the interpolation further comprises:

bilinear texture filtering;

trilinear texture filtering; and

anisotropic texture filtering.

12. The computing method of claim 8 , wherein the method is performed by synthesizing hardware description language instructions.

13. A system for computing system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory, in communication with the processor, configured to store a plurality of processing instructions for directing a computing system to:

receive a set of texture requests for a specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

generate a data set of addresses based on a shader program instruction for the specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

retrieve stored texel data from a level one cache system; and

calculate a formatted accumulated interpolation based on the retrieved texel data and an originating shader instruction, further comprising instructions for causing the computing system to:

receive floating point texel data;

generate normalized fixed point texel data from the floating point texel data;

perform an interpolation on the normalized fixed point texel data;

generate re-normalized floating point texel data;

accumulate re-normalized texel data; and

format the accumulated re-normalized texel data into a standard floating point representation.

14. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising instructions for causing the computing system to:

process shader pipe data destined to a defective shader pipe.

15. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising instructions for causing the computing system to:

read and write to a level two cache system from the level one texture cache system.

16. The computing system of claim 13 , further comprising instructions for causing the computing system to:

filter with a bilinear texture filter;

filter with a trilinear texture filter; and

filter with an anisotropic texture filter.

17. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions execution of which by one or more processor-based computing devices cause the one or more computing devices to perform a method of computing, the method performing operations comprising:

receiving a set of texture requests for a specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

generating a data set of addresses based on a shader program instruction for the specified set of pixels, vertices, primitives, surfaces, or compute work items;

retrieving stored texel data from a level one cache system; and

calculating a formatted accumulated interpolation based on the retrieved texel data and; an originating shader instruction, further comprising:

receiving floating point texel data;

generating normalized fixed point texel data from the floating point texel data;

performing an interpolation on the normalized fixed point texel data generating re-normalized floating point texel data;

accumulating re-normalized texel data; and

formatting the accumulated re-normalized texel data into a standard floating point representation.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17 , further comprising:

reading from and writing to a level two cache system from the level one texture cache system.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17 , further comprising:

bilinear texture filtering;

trilinear texture filtering; and

anisotropic texture filtering.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17 , further comprising;

processing shader pipe data destined for a defective shader pipe.