Low-cost Support for Fine-grain Synchronization in Multiprocessors

Abstract

As multiprocessors scale beyond the limits of a few tens of processors, they must look beyond traditional methods of synchronization to minimize serialization and achieve the high degrees of parallelism required to utilize large machines. By allowing synchronization at the level of the smallest unit of memory, fine-grain synchronization achieves these goals. Unfortunately, supporting efficient fine-grain synchronization without inordinate amounts of hardware has remained a challenge.