Scalable Spin Locks for Multiprogrammed Systems

Synchronization primitives for large shared-memory multiprocessors need to minimize latency and contention. Software queue-based locks address these goals, but suffer if a process near the end of the queue waits for a preempted process ahead of it. To solve this problem, we present two queue-based locks that recover from in-queue preemption. The simpler, faster lock employs an extended kernel interface that shares information in both directions across the user-kernel boundary. Results from experiments with real and synthetic applications on SGI and KSR multiprocessors demonstrate that high-performance software spin locks are compatible with multiprogramming on both largescale and bus-based machines.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: IPPS
• Authors: Robert W. Wisniewski, Leonidas I. Kontothanassis, Michael L. Scott
• Keywords: Distributed And Parallel Computing, IPPS 1994, Large Shared-memory Multiprocessors, Queue-based Locks, Software Queue-based Locks