Mechanisms for strong atomicity in a transactional memory system
US8706982B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 30, 2007 |
| Grant date | Apr 22, 2014 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 24, 2029 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/467
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and apparatus for providing efficient strong atomicity is herein described. Optimized strong operations may be inserted at non-transactional read accesses to provide efficient strong atomicity. A global transaction value is copied at a beginning of a non-transactional function to a local transaction value; essentially creating a local timestamp of the global transaction value. At a non-transactional memory access within the function, a counter value or version value is compared to the LTV to see if a transaction has started updating memory locations, or specifically the memory location accessed. If memory locations have not been updated by a transaction, execution is accelerated by avoiding a full set of slowpath strong atomic operations to ensure validity of data accessed. In contrast, the slowpath operations may be executed to resolve contention between a transactional and non-transaction access contending for the same memory location.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.