Efficient garbage collection and exception handling in a hardware accelerated transactional memory system

US8402218B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Microsoft Corporation · US

Inventors

• Jan Gray · Bellevue, US
• Martin Taillefer · Redmond, US
• Yosseff Levanoni · Redmond, US
• Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai · Santa Clara, US
• Dave Detlefs · Issaquah, US
• Vinod Grover · Mercer Island, US
• Michael M. Magruder · Issaquah, US
• Gad Sheaffer · Haifa, IL

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 15, 2009
• Grant date: Mar 19, 2013
• Expiry date: Apr 21, 2031

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F12/082
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Handling garbage collection and exceptions in hardware assisted transactions. Embodiments are practiced in a computing environment including a hardware assisted transaction system. Embodiments includes acts for writing to a card table outside of a transaction; handling garbage collection compaction occurring when a hardware transaction is active by using a common global variable and instructing one or more agents to write to the common global variable any time an operation is performed which may change an object's virtual address; acts for managing a thread-local allocation context; acts for handling exceptions while in a hardware assisted transaction. A method includes beginning a hardware assisted transaction, raising an exception while in the hardware assisted transaction, including creating an exception object, determining that the transaction should be rolled back, and as a result of determining that the transaction should be rolled back, marshaling the exception object out of the hardware assisted transaction.