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Spinlock
In software engineering, a spinlock is a lock that causes a thread trying to acquire it to simply wait in a loop ("spin") while repeatedly checking whether the lock is available. Since the thread remains active but is not performing a useful task, the use of such a lock is a kind of busy waiting. Once acquired, spinlocks will usually be held until they are explicitly released, although in some implementations they may be automatically released if the thread being waited on (the one that holds the lock) blocks or "goes to sleep". Because they avoid overhead from operating system process rescheduling or context switching, spinlocks are efficient if threads are likely to be blocked for only short periods. For this reason, operating-system kernels often use spinlocks. However, spinlocks become wasteful if held for longer durations, as they may prevent other threads from running and require rescheduling. The longer a thread holds a lock, the greater the risk that the thread will be i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Busy Waiting
In computer science and software engineering, busy-waiting, busy-looping or spinning is a technique in which a process repeatedly checks to see if a condition is true, such as whether keyboard input or a lock is available. Spinning can also be used to generate an arbitrary time delay, a technique that was necessary on systems that lacked a method of waiting a specific length of time. Processor speeds vary greatly from computer to computer, especially as some processors are designed to dynamically adjust speed based on current workload. Consequently, spinning as a time-delay technique can produce unpredictable or even inconsistent results on different systems unless code is included to determine the time a processor takes to execute a "do nothing" loop, or the looping code explicitly checks a real-time clock. In most cases spinning is considered an anti-pattern and should be avoided, as processor time that could be used to execute a different task is instead wasted on useless activ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' programmer'' is sometimes used as a synonym, but may also lack connotations of engineering education or skills. Engineering techniques are used to inform the software development process which involves the definition, implementation, assessment, measurement, management, change, and improvement of the software life cycle process itself. It heavily uses software configuration management which is about systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration and code throughout the system life cycle. Modern processes use software versioning. History Beginning in the 1960s, software engineering was seen as its own type of engineering. Additionally, the development of soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memory Ordering
Memory ordering describes the order of accesses to computer memory by a CPU. The term can refer either to the memory ordering generated by the compiler during compile time, or to the memory ordering generated by a CPU during runtime. In modern microprocessors, memory ordering characterizes the CPU's ability to reorder memory operations – it is a type of out-of-order execution. Memory reordering can be used to fully utilize the bus-bandwidth of different types of memory such as caches and memory banks. On most modern uniprocessors memory operations are not executed in the order specified by the program code. In single threaded programs all operations appear to have been executed in the order specified, with all out-of-order execution hidden to the programmer – however in multi-threaded environments (or when interfacing with other hardware via memory buses) this can lead to problems. To avoid problems, memory barriers can be used in these cases. Compile-time memory ordering ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MESI Protocol
The MESI protocol is an Invalidate-based cache coherence protocol, and is one of the most common protocols that support write-back caches. It is also known as the Illinois protocol (due to its development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Write back caches can save a lot of bandwidth that is generally wasted on a write through cache. There is always a dirty state present in write back caches that indicates that the data in the cache is different from that in main memory. The Illinois Protocol requires a cache to cache transfer on a miss if the block resides in another cache. This protocol reduces the number of main memory transactions with respect to the MSI protocol. This marks a significant improvement in performance. States The letters in the acronym MESI represent four exclusive states that a cache line can be marked with (encoded using two additional bits): ;Modified (M): The cache line is present only in the current cache, and is ''dirty'' - it has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glibc
The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project's implementation of the C standard library. Despite its name, it now also directly supports C++ (and, indirectly, other programming languages). It was started in the 1980s by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU operating system. Released under the GNU Lesser General Public License, glibc is free software. The GNU C Library project provides the core libraries for the GNU system, as well as many systems that use Linux as the kernel. These libraries provide critical APIs including ISO C11, POSIX.1-2008, BSD, OS-specific APIs and more. These APIs include such foundational facilities as open, read, write, malloc, printf, getaddrinfo, dlopen, pthread_create, crypt, login, exit and more. History The glibc project was initially written mostly by Roland McGrath, working for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the 1980s as a teenager. In February 1988, FSF described glibc as having nearly completed the func ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transactional Memory
In computer science and engineering, transactional memory attempts to simplify concurrent programming by allowing a group of load and store instructions to execute in an atomic way. It is a concurrency control mechanism analogous to database transactions for controlling access to shared memory in concurrent computing. Transactional memory systems provide high-level abstraction as an alternative to low-level thread synchronization. This abstraction allows for coordination between concurrent reads and writes of shared data in parallel systems. Motivation In concurrent programming, synchronization is required when parallel threads attempt to access a shared resource. Low-level thread synchronization constructs such as locks are pessimistic and prohibit threads that are outside a critical section from making any changes. The process of applying and releasing locks often functions as additional overhead in workloads with little conflict among threads. Transactional memory provides o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transactional Synchronization Extensions
Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX), also called Transactional Synchronization Extensions New Instructions (TSX-NI), is an extension to the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) that adds hardware transactional memory support, speeding up execution of multi-threaded software through lock elision. According to different benchmarks, TSX/TSX-NI can provide around 40% faster applications execution in specific workloads, and 4–5 times more database transactions per second (TPS). TSX/TSX-NI was documented by Intel in February 2012, and debuted in June 2013 on selected Intel microprocessors based on the Haswell (microarchitecture), Haswell microarchitecture. Haswell processors below 45xx as well as R-series and K-series (with unlocked multiplier) Stock keeping unit, SKUs do not support TSX/TSX-NI. In August 2014, Intel announced a bug in the TSX/TSX-NI implementation on current steppings of Haswell, Haswell-E, Haswell-EP and early Broadwell (microarchitecture), Broadwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MESI
The MESI protocol is an Invalidate-based cache coherence protocol, and is one of the most common protocols that support write-back caches. It is also known as the Illinois protocol (due to its development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Write back caches can save a lot of bandwidth that is generally wasted on a write through cache. There is always a dirty state present in write back caches that indicates that the data in the cache is different from that in main memory. The Illinois Protocol requires a cache to cache transfer on a miss if the block resides in another cache. This protocol reduces the number of main memory transactions with respect to the MSI protocol. This marks a significant improvement in performance. States The letters in the acronym MESI represent four exclusive states that a cache line can be marked with (encoded using two additional bits): ;Modified (M): The cache line is present only in the current cache, and is ''dirty'' - it has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bus (computing)
In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols. Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB). Background and nomenclature Computer systems generally consist of three main parts: * The central processing unit (CPU) that processes data, * The memory that holds the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IA-64
IA-64 (Intel Itanium architecture) is the instruction set architecture (ISA) of the Itanium family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors. The basic ISA specification originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was subsequently implemented by Intel in collaboration with HP. The first Itanium processor, codenamed ''Merced'', was released in 2001. The Itanium architecture is based on explicit instruction-level parallelism, in which the compiler decides which instructions to execute in parallel. This contrasts with superscalar architectures, which depend on the processor to manage instruction dependencies at runtime. In all Itanium models, up to and including '' Tukwila'', cores execute up to six instructions per clock cycle. In 2008, Itanium was the fourth-most deployed microprocessor architecture for enterprise-class systems, behind x86-64, Power ISA, and SPARC. History Development: 1989–2000 In 1989, HP began to become concerned that reduced instruction set computing (RISC) archite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symmetric Multiprocessing
Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all input and output devices, and are controlled by a single operating system instance that treats all processors equally, reserving none for special purposes. Most multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture. In the case of multi-core processors, the SMP architecture applies to the cores, treating them as separate processors. Professor John D. Kubiatowicz considers traditionally SMP systems to contain processors without caches. Culler and Pal-Singh in their 1998 book "Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware/Software Approach" mention: "The term SMP is widely used but causes a bit of confusion. ..The more precise description of what is intended by SMP is a shared memory multiprocessor where the cost of accessing a memory location ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I486
The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the 8086 of 1978, the Intel 80286 of 1982, and 1985's i386. It was the first tightly- pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to include more than one million transistors. It offered a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating-point unit. A typical 50 MHz i486 executes around 40 million instructions per second (MIPS), reaching 50 MIPS peak performance. It is approximately twice as fast as the i386 or i286 per clock cycle. The i486's improved performance is thanks to its five-stage pipeline with all stages bound to a single cycle. The enhanced FPU unit on the chip was significantly faster than the i387 FPU per cycle. The intel 80387 FPU ("i387") was a separate, optional math coprocessor that was installed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
