Contention in shared memory algorithms

Most complexity measures for concurrent algorithms for asynchronous shared-memory architectures focus on process steps and memory consumption. In practice, however, performance of multiprocessor algorithms is heavily influenced by contention, the extent to which processes access the same location at the same time. Nevertheless, even though contention is one of the principal considerations affecting the performance of real algorithms on real multiprocessors, there are no formal tools for analyzing the contention of asynchronous shared-memory algorithms. This paper introduces the first formal complexity model for contention in shared-memory multiprocessors. We focus on the standard multiprocessor architecture in which n asynchronous processes communicate by applying read, write, and read-modify-write operations to a shared memory. To illustrate the utility of our model, we use it to derive two kinds of results: (1) lower bounds on contention for well-known basic problems such as agreemen...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1993
• Where: STOC
• Authors: Cynthia Dwork, Maurice Herlihy, Orli Waarts
• Keywords: Algorithms, Asynchronous Shared-memory, Asynchronous Shared-memory Algorithms, Asynchronous Shared-memory Architectures, STOC 1993