US Patent 8381203 Insertion of multithreaded execution synchronization points in a software program

A compiler is configured to determine a set of points in a flow graph for a software program where multithreaded execution synchronization points are inserted to synchronize divergent threads for SIMD processing. MIMD execution of divergent threads is allowed and execution of the divergent threads proceeds until a synchronization point is reached. When all of the threads reach the synchronization point, synchronous execution resumes. The synchronization points are needed to ensure proper execution of the certain instructions that require synchronous execution as defined in some graphics APIs and when synchronous execution improves performance based on a SIMD architecture.