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:
Jan. 24, 2006
Filed:
Jan. 16, 2003
William Joseph Armstrong, Rochester, MN (US);
Michael Joseph Corrigan, Rochester, MN (US);
Gary Ross Ricard, Chatfield, MN (US);
Timothy Joseph Torzewski, Rochester, MN (US);
William Joseph Armstrong, Rochester, MN (US);
Michael Joseph Corrigan, Rochester, MN (US);
Gary Ross Ricard, Chatfield, MN (US);
Timothy Joseph Torzewski, Rochester, MN (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A task synchronization mechanism operates on a global lock that is shared between processors an on local locks that are not shared between processors. The local locks are processor-specific locks. Each processor-specific lock is dedicated to a particular processor in the system. When shared access to a resource is required, a processor updates its processor-specific lock to indicate the processor is sharing the resource. Because each processor-specific lock is dedicated to a particular processor, this eliminates a significant portion of the memory bus traffic associated with all processors reading and updating the same lock. When exclusive access to a resource is required, the requesting processor waits until the count of all processor-specific locks indicate that none of these processors have a lock on the resource. Once no processor has a lock on the resource, exclusive access to the resource may be granted.