CAPABILITY CLASSES OF MULTIPROCESSOR SYNCHRONIZATION TECHNIQUES

R.F. DeMara, Y. Tseng, K. Drake, and A. Ejnioui

Keywords

Distributed applications, distributed architectures, interprocessor communication, parallel processors, barrier synchronization, termination tetection, quiescent state, global quiescence

Abstract

Performance metrics and evaluation criteria are used to develop a novel taxonomy that classifies barrier mechanisms into categories ranging from simple Static-Binding Idle-Tasking methods to robust Dynamic-Binding Any-Tasking methods. Such capabilities include support for multiple barriers, reconfigurable and reusable synchronization resources, and provisions for dynamic process binding. Based on these features, the existing software-based approaches, dedicated-hardware mechanisms, and hybrid hardware/software techniques for synchronization are assessed in order of increasing complexity. Any barrier synchronization algorithm can be readily classified using this taxonomy to understand resource requirements and performance tradeoffs.

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