公开(公告)号：US20150097847A1

公开(公告)日：2015-04-09

申请号：US14046064

申请日：2013-10-04

Applicant: NVIDIA CORPORATION

Inventor： Jonathan DUNAISKY ,  Henry Packard MORETON ,  Jeffrey A. BOLZ ,  Yury Y. URALSKY ,  James Leroy DEMING ,  Rui M. BASTOS ,  Patrick R. BROWN ,  Amanpreet GREWAL ,  Christian AMSINCK ,  Poornachandra RAO ,  Jerome F. DULUK, JR. ,  Andrew J. TAO

IPC: G09G5/39 ,  G06T1/60

CPC classification number: G09G5/39 ,  G06F12/0897 ,  G06F12/1027 ,  G06T1/60

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention includes a memory management unit (MMU) that is configured to manage sparse mappings. The MMU processes requests to translate virtual addresses to physical addresses based on page table entries (PTEs) that indicate a sparse status. If the MMU determines that the PTE does not include a mapping from a virtual address to a physical address, then the MMU responds to the request based on the sparse status. If the sparse status is active, then the MMU determines the physical address based on whether the type of the request is a write operation and, subsequently, generates an acknowledgement of the request. By contrast, if the sparse status is not active, then the MMU generates a page fault. Advantageously, the disclosed embodiments enable the computer system to manage sparse mappings without incurring the performance degradation associated with both page faults and conventional software-based sparse mapping management.

Abstract translation: 本发明的一个实施例包括被配置为管理稀疏映射的存储器管理单元（MMU）。 MMU根据指示稀疏状态的页表项（PTE）处理将虚拟地址转换为物理地址的请求。 如果MMU确定PTE不包括从虚拟地址到物理地址的映射，则MMU将根据稀疏状态对该请求进行响应。 如果稀疏状态为活动状态，则MMU将根据请求的类型是否为写入操作确定物理地址，然后生成请求的确认。 相比之下，如果稀疏状态不活动，则MMU会生成页面错误。 有利地，所公开的实施例使得计算机系统能够管理稀疏映射，而不会引起与页面故障和常规的基于软件的稀疏映射管理相关联的性能下降。