Interrupt handling serialization for process level programming

US5274823A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• International Business Machines Corporation · US

Inventors

• Larry Bert Brenner · Austin, US
• Barry P. Lubart · Hurley, US
• Jeffrey S. Lucash · Hurley, US
• John C. Rathjen, Jr. · Rhinebeck, US
• Ronald Sasala · Hurley, US
• Thomas Van Weaver · Woodstock, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 31, 1992
• Grant date: Dec 28, 1993
• Expiry date: Mar 31, 2012

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F13/26
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A method for serializing access to computer system resources without disabling interrupts in critical code sections or requiring excessive use of spin locks. A queue lock is introduced that allows an interrupt process to enqueue and be processed in turn without a spin lock and to block process code access to a particular resource until all interrupts are processed. Process level code is blocked from accessing a locked resource while requests for accesses from interrupt level code are queued in a deferred work queue which is processed prior to the release of the blocking lock. Establishment of deferred work queue means that processing can continue without disablement of interrupts and without significant overhead consumed by processes holding spin locks.