Priority based context preemption

摘要

Methods and apparatuses may prioritize the processing of high priority and low priority contexts submitted to a processing unit through separate high priority and low priority context submission ports. According to one embodiment, submission of a context to the low priority port causes contexts in progress to be preempted, whereas submission of a context to the high priority port causes contexts in progress to be paused.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
a processor; a pipeline; a first port to receive contexts having a first priority; a second port to receive contexts having a second priority that is higher than the first priority; a context detection module to detect receipt of the contexts having the second priority at the second port; a pre-emption module to pre-empt a context having the first priority in the pipeline, wherein to pre-empt the context having the first priority in the pipeline is to include flushing the pipeline by permitting the context having the first priority already in the pipeline to complete execution when the first port receives another context having the first priority; a pause module to pause the context having the first priority in the pipeline before it completes in the pipeline and without flushing the pipeline after the context detection module has detected the receipt of a context having the second priority at the second port; and on-die storage to store a state of the paused context.