Diamond-based transformers and power convertors
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6181231
Diamond is used as an electrically insulating substrate in multi-layer devices. In a transformer, the first electrical conductor forms a coil. The first electrical conductor is formed in a plurality of layers. Electrical carriers are formed on a layer to make an electrical path around a core of ferrous material. The second conductor forms a second coil of the transformer and also wraps around the core of ferrous material. Using diamond is advantageous in a transformer since the diamond…
Database-independent, scalable, object-oriented architecture and API for managing digital multimedia assets
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6181336
A system is described for providing an integrated, efficient and consistent production environment for the shared development of multimedia productions. Examples of multimedia productions include feature animation films, computerized animation films, interactive video games, interactive movies, and other types of entertainment and/or educational multimedia works. The development of such multimedia products typically involve heterogenous and diverse forms of multimedia data. Further, the…
Bayes rule based and decision tree hybrid classifier
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6182058
The present invention provides a hybrid classifier, called the NB-Tree classifier, for classifying a set of records. According to the present invention, the NB-Tree classifier includes a Decision-Tree structure having zero or more decision-nodes and one or more leaf-nodes. At each decision-node, a test is performed based on one or more attributes. At each leaf-node, a classifier based on Bayes Rule classifies the records. Furthermore, the present invention provides a method for inducing…
Method, system and computer program product for dynamically allocating large memory pages of different sizes
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6182089
A method, system and computer program product for dynamically allocating large memory pages of different sizes. Each process can select multiple page sizes. An algorithm referred to as a “Coalescing Daemon” is used to allocate large pages. “High water marks” are specified to the operating system. A high water mark is the maximum percentage of total system memory that the Coalescing Daemon coalesces for a given page size. The high water marks are used to allocate a…
System and method for maintaining coherency of virtual-to-physical memory translations in a multiprocessor computer
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
6182195
A multiprocessor computer system and method for maintaining coherency between virtual-to-physical memory translations of multiple requestors in the system. A poison bit is associated with a memory block in the system. The poison bit is set to indicate that a virtual-to-physical memory translation for the memory block is stale. An exception is generated in response to an access by one of the requestors to the memory block if the poison bit is set, thereby indicating to the requestor that…
Radial computer system
Granted: January 30, 2001
Patent Number:
D436950
Modular card cage with connection mechanism
Granted: January 9, 2001
Patent Number:
6171120
A card cage for connecting circuit board cards to a computer is disclosed. The card cage includes connector receptacles for receiving circuit board cards such as PCI cards. The card cage also includes a connection mechanism for electrically coupling the connector receptacles to the computer. In one embodiment, the connection mechanism includes a compression connector and a locking mechanism for electrically and mechanically coupling the card cage to the computer. Thus circuit board cards…
System for stacking of integrated circuit packages
Granted: January 9, 2001
Patent Number:
6172874
An apparatus for electrically connecting a plurality chips to a circuit board includes a pair of ceramic chip carriers that have flexible circuits connected to the electrical contact locations on each ceramic chip. The apparatus for electrically connecting a plurality chips to a circuit board may also include an area between two chip connect surfaces which has multiple metallization layers isolated from one another by flexible isolation material. A flexible circuit extends beyond the…
Network request distribution based on static rules and dynamic performance data
Granted: January 9, 2001
Patent Number:
6173322
A system and method for the distribution of client requests received from a digital computer network provides an intermediary between the client and one or more content servers that actually service the client request. Client requests are distributed amongst groups of content servers according to a one or more static rules. These static rules are applied to determine which group of content servers will service each client request. Content servers may be grouped without regard to hardware…
Metered force single point heatsink attach mechanism
Granted: January 2, 2001
Patent Number:
6169659
The present invention is drawn to a system and a method for attaching and tightening a mechanism onto an IC package such that a load-balanced thermal contact is formed securely between the mechanism and the IC package without risking damages to the IC package. The mechanism is then used to support a heat sink that utilizes the thermal contact formed for dissipating heat away from the IC package. Specifically, the mechanism is modified in stages. During the tightening stage, the mechanism…
High performance gas cooling system and method
Granted: January 2, 2001
Patent Number:
6167947
The present invention relates to an improved system and method for cooling electronic devices. The present system is particularly adapted for cooling computer equipment. The system comprises a sealed enclosure which houses one or more heat generating electronic devices; a blower; and a heat exchanger. The sealed enclosure may be pressurized with a gas medium such as dry nitrogen up to a pressure of approximately two atmospheres. The elevated pressure increases the gas density,…
Interface for a high performance low cost video game system with coprocessor providing high speed efficient 3D graphics and digital audio signal processing
Granted: December 26, 2000
Patent Number:
6166748
A low cost high performance three dimensional (3D) graphics system is disclosed that can model a world in three dimensions and project the model onto a two dimensional viewing plane selected based on a changeable viewpoint. The viewpoint can be changed on an interactive, real time basis by operating user input controls such as game controllers. The system rapidly produces a corresponding changing image (which can include animated cartoon characters or other animation) on the screen of a…
Method, system, and computer program product for page replication in a non-uniform memory access system
Granted: December 26, 2000
Patent Number:
6167437
A system and method for page replication in a non-uniform memory access system (NUMA). The system and method generates replicas for memory objects to reduce contention and improve overall system performance in NUMA multi-processor computer systems. Memory objects are used by the operating system to represent files, and comprise a state portion and a page cache portion. The state portion describes the state of the memory object. The page cache portion contains a set of physical memory…
Method, system, and computer program product for shading
Granted: December 19, 2000
Patent Number:
6163319
A method, system, and computer program product are provided for accelerated shading of an object surface by bump mapping in tangent space or object space. A tangent space transform module builds a tangent space transform matrix M(p) having elements comprised of normal, tangent, and binormal vector components determined at a surface point on the object surface. The tangent space transform module further transforms shading vectors, such as, lighting and viewing vectors, into a tangent…
Method and apparatus for radiometrically accurate texture-based lightpoint rendering technique
Granted: December 19, 2000
Patent Number:
6163320
A method and apparatus for rendering lightpoints is provided. For the method of the present invention, a programmer creates a series of texture maps. Each texture map approximates the lobe of a lightpoint at a respective distance from the lightpoint. Each texture map includes transparency texture information. This allows the lightpoint to correctly model fog and other atmospheric conditions. The series of texture maps are encoded in a mipmap associated with the lightpoint. During use, a…
Video frame detector readily adaptable to video signal formats without manual programming and method for same
Granted: December 12, 2000
Patent Number:
6160589
A video frame detector circuit used in synchronizing one video signal with another video signal. The video frame detector of the present invention is able to automatically detect a start of frame portion of any video composite synchronization signal connected to it without requiring programming. The start of frame commences with the least frequent vertical field, or if all fields are equally frequent, a deterministic process is used to promote one of the fields to be the start of the…
Method and apparatus for maintaining multiple representations of a same scene in computer generated graphics
Granted: November 28, 2000
Patent Number:
6154215
A method for creating and maintaining a dual scene graph for the display of a computer generated object. The user creates a user scene graph which has a number of node in a hierarchical organization which represents an object. This user scene graph is organized according to the dictates of the user for ease of human comprehension. The computer system automatically converts this user scene graph into a separate scene graph. The organization of this second scene graph is optimized so that…
Upstream situated apparatus and method within a computer system for controlling data flow to a downstream situated input/output unit
Granted: November 28, 2000
Patent Number:
6154794
A method and apparatus for controlling the flow of information (e.g., graphics primitives, display data, etc.) to an input/output unit within a computer controlled graphics system. The system includes a processor having a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer, a separate input/output unit with its FIFO buffer, and a number of intermediate devices (with FIFO buffers) coupled between the input/output unit and the processor for moving input/output data from the processor to the input/output…
Method, system, and computer program product for extending sparse partial redundancy elimination to support speculative code motion within an optimizing compiler
Granted: November 21, 2000
Patent Number:
6151706
A method, system, and computer program product for performing speculative code motion within a sparse partial redundancy elimination (PRE) framework. Speculative code motion (i.e., speculation) refers to the placement of computations by a compiler in positions in the program that results in some paths being executed more efficiently and some being executed less efficiently. A net speed-up is thus achieved when the improved paths are those executed more frequently during the program's…
System and method for combining multiple video streams
Granted: November 14, 2000
Patent Number:
6147695
An operation for combining multiple video streams permits combining any number of overlay images and base images regardless of processes performed upon one or more of the images. Specifically, where the base images are dynamically sized and resized to provide a constant frame rate (despite varying frame complexity), the process similarly treats overlay images and even other base images. In the dynamic sizing process, a rendering time is compared to high and low water marks. During…
