Apparatus and method for ray tracing instruction processing and execution

Abstract

An apparatus and method to execute ray tracing instructions. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises execution circuitry to execute a dequantize instruction to convert a plurality of quantized data values to a plurality of dequantized data values, the dequantize instruction including a first source operand to identify a plurality of packed quantized data values in a source register and a destination operand to identify a destination register in which to store a plurality of packed dequantized data values, wherein the execution circuitry is to convert each packed quantized data value in the source register to a floating point value, to multiply the floating point value by a first value to generate a first product and to add the first product to a second value to generate a dequantized data value, and to store the dequantized data value in a packed data element location in the destination register.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform the operations of:
 scheduling instructions of a plurality of threads to be executed by a processor; and   executing a first instruction including a first operand specifying values associated with the plurality of threads, wherein executing the first instruction comprises:
 returning a minimum value from values associated with a set of threads, the set of threads selected from the plurality of threads based on a mask. 
   
     
     
         2 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the mask comprises one bit associated with each thread, wherein a first bit value indicates that a corresponding thread is included in the set of threads, and a second bit value indicates that the thread is not included in the set of threads. 
     
     
         3 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein each of the values associated with the plurality of threads comprises an integer. 
     
     
         4 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the set of threads are synchronized. 
     
     
         5 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the machine is caused to further perform the operations of:
 executing a second instruction including a second operand specifying the values associated with the plurality of threads, wherein executing the second instruction comprises:
 returning a maximum value from the values associated with the set of threads, the set of threads selected from the plurality of threads based on the mask. 
   
     
     
         6 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the machine is caused to further perform the operations of:
 generating rays for traversal through a graphics scene;   constructing a hierarchical acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes; and   traversing one or more of the rays through the hierarchical acceleration data structure and intersecting the one or more of the rays with primitives contained within the hierarchically arranged nodes.   
     
     
         7 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform the operations of:
 scheduling instructions of a plurality of threads to be executed by a processor; and   executing a first instruction including a first operand specifying values associated with the plurality of threads, wherein executing the first instruction comprises:
 returning a maximum value from values associated with a set of threads, the set of threads selected from the plurality of threads based on a mask. 
   
     
     
         8 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein the mask comprises one bit associated with each thread, wherein a first bit value indicates that a corresponding thread is included in the set of threads, and a second bit value indicates that the thread is not included in the set of threads. 
     
     
         9 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein each of the values associated with the plurality of threads comprises an integer. 
     
     
         10 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein the set of threads are synchronized. 
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein the machine is caused to further perform the operations of:
 executing a second instruction including a second operand specifying the values associated with the plurality of threads, wherein executing the second instruction comprises:
 returning a minimum value from the values associated with the set of threads, the set of threads selected from the plurality of threads based on the mask. 
   
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein the machine is caused to further perform the operations of:
 generating rays for traversal through a graphics scene;   constructing a hierarchical acceleration data structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically arranged nodes; and   traversing one or more of the rays through the hierarchical acceleration data structure and intersecting the one or more of the rays with primitives contained within the hierarchically arranged nodes.