Multi Instance Unified Shader Engine Filtering System With Level One and Level Two Cache

1 . A scalable shader engine filtering system, comprising:

a shader engine;

a level one cache system;

a level two cache system; and

a sequencer,

wherein the shader engine is configured to accept texture requests, under the control of the sequencer, from one or more resources and generate a formatted interpolation based on texel data stored in the level one cache system, the level one cache system being configured to communicate with the level two cache system via a wide channel memory bus.

2 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 1 , further comprising one or more shader engines.

3 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 2 , wherein the shader engine comprises:

one or more engine rows, each engine row comprising:

a shader pipe array configured to accept a texture request from a resource whereby output texel data is generated based on rendering calculations for a specified pixel; and

a texture mapping unit configured to accept the texel data and generate a formatted interpolation.

4 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 1 , wherein the level one cache system is configurable to be shared amongst other resources.

5 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 3 , wherein each engine row further comprises a redundant shader pipe system configured to process shader pipe data destined to a defective shader pipe.

6 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 5 , further comprising a redundant shader switch configured to control the switching of data input and output signals to the redundant shader pipe system when a defective shader pipe within the shader pipe array is identified by the sequencer.

7 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 2 , wherein a shader pipe block is configured to contain one or more shader pipes.

8 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 1 , wherein the level one cache system comprises one or more level one cache blocks where each level one cache block is associated with a shader pipe texture mapping unit whereby the shader pipe texture mapping unit is configured to read and write data to and from the level one cache block.

9 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 3 , wherein the texture mapping unit 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.

10 . The scalable shader engine filtering system of claim 9 , 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.

11 . A method for scalable shader engine filtering, comprising:

receiving texture requests from a plurality of resources in parallel for a plurality of specified pixels;

allocating the texture requests amongst a plurality of shader engines;

generating a set of output texel data for each specified pixel;

retrieving texel data; and

calculating a formatted interpolation for each set of texel data in parallel.

12 . The scalable shader engine filtering method of claim 11 , further comprising:

processing shader pipe data destined to one or more defective shader pipes.

13 . The scalable shader engine filtering method of claim 11 , further comprising:

utilizing multi-level caching algorithms to increase performance.

14 . The scalable shader engine filtering method of claim 11 , 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.

15 . The scalable shader engine filtering method of claim 14 , wherein interpolation calculating comprises:

filtering using a bilinear texture filter;

filtering using a trilinear texture filter; and

filtering using an anisotropic texture filter.

16 . The scalable shader engine filtering method of claim 11 , wherein the method is performed by synthesizing hardware description language instructions.

17 . A system for scalable shader engine filtering, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with said processor, said memory for storing a plurality of processing instructions for directing said processor to:

receive texture requests from a plurality of resources for a plurality of specified pixels;

allocate the texture requests amongst a plurality of shader engines;

generate a set of output texel data for each specified pixel based on rendering calculations;

retrieve texel data from a level one cache system; and

calculate a formatted interpolation for each set of texel data in parallel utilizing a texture filter.

18 . A system according to claim 17 further comprising instructions for causing said processor to:

process shader pipe data destined to one or more defective shader pipes.

19 . A system according to claim 17 further comprising instructions for causing said processor to:

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

20 . A system according to claim 17 further comprising instructions for causing said processor 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.

21 . A system according to claim 17 further comprising instructions for causing said processor to:

perform a bilinear texture filter;

perform a trilinear texture filter; and

perform an anisotropic texture filter.

22 . A system for scalable shader engine filtering, comprising:

means for receiving texture requests from a plurality of resources for a plurality of specified pixels;

means for allocating the texture requests amongst a plurality of shader engines;

means for generating a set of output texel data for each specified pixel based on rendering calculations;

means for retrieving texel data from a level one cache system; and

means for calculating a formatted interpolation for each set of texel data in parallel utilizing a texture filter.

23 . A system according to claim 23 , further comprising:

means for processing shader pipe data destined to one or more defective shader pipes.

24 . A system according to claim 23 , further comprising:

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

25 . A system according to claim 23 , further comprising:

means for receiving floating point texel data;

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

means for performing an interpolation on the normalized fixed point texel data;

means for generating re-normalized floating point texel data;

means for accumulating re-normalized texel data; and

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

26 . A system according to claim 23 , further comprising:

means for performing a bilinear texture filter;

means for performing a trilinear texture filter; and

means for performing an anisotropic texture filter.

27 . A computer readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for execution by one or more processor-based computing systems which when executed causes the computer systems to perform a method for scalable shader complex filtering, comprising:

receiving texture requests from a plurality of resources for a plurality of specified pixels;

allocating the texture requests amongst a plurality of shader engines;

generating a set of output texel data for each specified pixel based on rendering calculations;

retrieving texel data from a level one cache system; and

calculating a formatted interpolation for each set of texel data in parallel utilizing a texture filter.

28 . The computer readable medium according to claim 28 wherein the method for scalable shader complex filtering further comprises:

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.