The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 30, 2004
Filed:
Oct. 25, 2000
Christine H. Flood, Westford, MA (US);
David L. Detlefs, Westford, MA (US);
Alexander T. Garthwaite, Beverly, MA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A multiprocessor, multiprogram, stop-the-world garbage collection program is described. The system initially over partitions the root sources, and then iteratively employs static and dynamic work balancing. Garbage collection threads compete dynamically for the initial partitions. Work stealing double-ended queues, where contention is reduced, are described to provide dynamic load balancing among the threads. Contention is resolved by atomic instructions. The heap is broken into a young and an old generation where semi-space copying employing local allocation buffers is used to collect the reachable objects in the young section, and for promoting objects from the young to the old generations, and parallel mark-compacting is used for collecting the old generation. Efficiency of collection is enhanced by use of card tables and linking objects, and overflow conditions are efficiently handled by linking using class pointers. The garbage collection termination using a global status word is employed.