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Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

GPU Programming Model & SIMT: Occupancy is bounded by register count, shared memory, warps/SM limits, and block shape; higher occupancy helps hide latency until another bottleneck dominates.

What this topic teaches

Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics converts GPU architecture concepts into review-ready engineering decisions. Occupancy is bounded by register count, shared memory, warps/SM limits, and block shape; higher occupancy helps hide latency until another bottleneck dominates. The practical goal is to tie counters and traces to a specific mechanism, owner, and closure action.

The senior-engineer question

When theoretical vs achieved occupancy, latency hiding score, and warp starvation rate shifts, can you prove whether the root cause is SIMT control flow, SM scheduling, memory traffic, interconnect pressure, or graphics stage imbalance?

diagram

SIMT EXECUTION — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

warp 0 lanes:  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 31
active mask :  1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 ...  1
instruction :  IF branch taken on active lanes

cycle 10: issue warp 0
cycle 11: issue warp 3
cycle 12: warp 0 reconverges

Focus: anchor discussion in lane masks and warp progress
Metric tracked: theoretical vs achieved occupancy, latency hiding score, and warp starvation rate

Picture the architecture

Begin with an architecture sketch before touching tuning knobs. These diagrams are for design reviews, interview whiteboards, and closure discussions.

Occupancy effect on issue availability

diagram

WARP SCHEDULER VIEW — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

cycle ->      0    1    2    3    4
eligible   [W1,W2,W5] [W2] [W2,W7] [W7] [W3,W7]
issued         W1      W2    W7      W7    W3
stall reason    -    dep wait  -   mem wait  -

Scheduler objective: keep issue slots non-empty.
Focus: connect occupancy limits to scheduler starvation windows

When occupancy is not the bottleneck

diagram

BANDWIDTH ROOFLINE — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

performance
   ^
   |                compute ceiling
   |               /
   |              /
   |-------------/------------------ memory ceiling
   +------------------------------------------> operational intensity
      memory-bound             compute-bound

Interpretation: separate occupancy tuning from memory-bandwidth ceilings

SM and datapath context

diagram

SM BLOCK DIAGRAM — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

        +---------------------------+
        | Warp Schedulers / Dispatch|
        +------------+--------------+
                     |
     +---------------+----------------+
     |  Register File / Operand Cross |
     +--------+---------------+-------+
              |               |
           [ALU/FPU]       [LD/ST]
              |               |
              +-------+-------+
                      |
                L1 / Shared Mem

Focus: front-end to execute dataflow

Memory hierarchy context

diagram

GPU MEMORY HIERARCHY — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

                [ Registers ]
              latency:   1-2 cycles
                     |
                [ Shared/L1 ]
              latency:  20-40 cycles
                     |
                    [ L2 ]
              latency: 150-250 cycles
                     |
             [ HBM/GDDR VRAM ]
              latency: 300ns+ effective

Optimization lens: capacity vs latency

Scheduler context

diagram

WARP SCHEDULER VIEW — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

cycle ->      0    1    2    3    4
eligible   [W1,W2,W5] [W2] [W2,W7] [W7] [W3,W7]
issued         W1      W2    W7      W7    W3
stall reason    -    dep wait  -   mem wait  -

Scheduler objective: keep issue slots non-empty.
Focus: eligible warp quality

Ownership layers

diagram

GPU OWNERSHIP LAYERS — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

artifact area     owner
----------------  ----------------------------
architecture    kernel optimization owner
RTL/microarch   compiler owner
software/tools  GPU performance lead

Rule: each metric needs a named owner before signoff.

Evidence to collect

Primary metric: theoretical vs achieved occupancy, latency hiding score, and warp starvation rate.
Primary artifact: occupancy report, register/shared-memory budget table, and profiler timeline.
Owners to include: kernel optimization owner, compiler owner, GPU performance lead.
One reproducible failing workload and one stable comparator workload.
One counter capture that separates compute issue from memory/interconnect pressure.

Roofline lens

diagram

BANDWIDTH ROOFLINE — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

performance
   ^
   |                compute ceiling
   |               /
   |              /
   |-------------/------------------ memory ceiling
   +------------------------------------------> operational intensity
      memory-bound             compute-bound

Interpretation: identify compute vs memory bound

Coalescing lens

diagram

COALESCING PATTERN — Kernel Launch & Occupancy Basics

WARP ADDRESSES
lane: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
addr: 0 4 8 C 10 14 18 1C    -> contiguous -> 1 transaction segment

lane: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
addr: 0 40 8 48 10 50 18 58  -> strided/scatter -> many segments

Effect: fewer coalesced segments => better bandwidth efficiency.
Focus: transaction inflation from scatter

Subpages in this topic

Each topic includes mechanism, inputs/outputs, reports, debug, worked example, pitfalls, interview, checklist, theory deep dive, design space, case study, walkthrough, matrix, software view, and silicon impact.

Key takeaways

Always connect warp behavior to measured counters before proposing fixes.
Treat memory transaction quality as equal priority to compute utilization.
Close decisions with explicit owners and reproducible benchmark evidence.

Common pitfalls

Copying tuning patterns from unrelated workloads or scenes.
Using occupancy as a success metric without stall classification.
Declaring closure without end-to-end frame or kernel validation.

GPU deep dive

SIMT abstractions are productive only when launch geometry and divergence behavior align with hardware.

Concept diagram

diagram

PROGRAMMING MODEL STACK

host API -> kernel launch -> grid -> block -> warp -> lane

Metric graph

diagram

KERNEL EFFICIENCY TREND

warp execution efficiency  ██████████
memory replay ratio        █████
idle issue slots           ███

Reports and artifacts

occupancy report
warp efficiency summary
kernel launch audit
replay counter snapshot

Mini case study

A block-size bump improved theoretical occupancy but increased replay and reduced achieved throughput by 22%.

Debug branches

Map launch geometry to active warps per SM
Correlate branch masks with divergence hotspots
Validate occupancy against achieved IPC

Senior review question

Ask: which metric and benchmark pairing proves this topic is truly closed in production context?

Key takeaways

Always pair micro-kernel metrics with end-to-end workload impact.
Lock toolchain, driver, and launch metadata before comparing performance results.

Common pitfalls

Optimizing occupancy without checking memory-system saturation.
Comparing profiler captures from different driver or compiler builds.
Declaring wins without reproducible accuracy and performance gates.

Practice this lesson