New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: How does a CPU communicate with a GPU?
Ask HN: How does a CPU communicate with a GPU?
12 by pedrolins | 8 comments on Hacker News.
I've been learning about computer architecture [1] and I've become comfortable with my understanding of how a processor communicates with main memory - be it directly, with the presence of caches or even virtual memory - and I/O peripherals. But something that seems weirdly absent from the courses I took and what I have found online is how the CPU communicates with other processing units, such as GPUs - not only that, but an in-depth description of interconnecting different systems with buses (by in-depth I mean an RTL example/description). I understand that as you add more hardware to a machine, complexity increases and software must intervene - so a generalistic answer won't exist and the answer will depend on the implementation being talked about. That's fine by me. What I'm looking for is a description of how a CPU tells a GPU to start executing a program. Through what means do they communicate - a bus? How does such a communication instance look like? I'd love get pointers to resources such as books and lectures that are more hands-on/implementation aware. [1] Just so that my background knowledge is clear: I've concluded NAND2TETRIS, watched and concluded Berkeley's 2020 CS61C and have read a good chunk of H&P (both Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach and Computer Organization and Design: RISC-V edition), and now am moving on to Onur Mutlu's lectures on advanced computer architecture.
12 by pedrolins | 8 comments on Hacker News.
I've been learning about computer architecture [1] and I've become comfortable with my understanding of how a processor communicates with main memory - be it directly, with the presence of caches or even virtual memory - and I/O peripherals. But something that seems weirdly absent from the courses I took and what I have found online is how the CPU communicates with other processing units, such as GPUs - not only that, but an in-depth description of interconnecting different systems with buses (by in-depth I mean an RTL example/description). I understand that as you add more hardware to a machine, complexity increases and software must intervene - so a generalistic answer won't exist and the answer will depend on the implementation being talked about. That's fine by me. What I'm looking for is a description of how a CPU tells a GPU to start executing a program. Through what means do they communicate - a bus? How does such a communication instance look like? I'd love get pointers to resources such as books and lectures that are more hands-on/implementation aware. [1] Just so that my background knowledge is clear: I've concluded NAND2TETRIS, watched and concluded Berkeley's 2020 CS61C and have read a good chunk of H&P (both Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach and Computer Organization and Design: RISC-V edition), and now am moving on to Onur Mutlu's lectures on advanced computer architecture.
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