Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Systems and methods for safely subscribing to locks using hardware extensions
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Application No.: US14736123Application Date: 2015-06-10
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Publication No.: US10521277B2Publication Date: 2019-12-31
- Inventor: David Dice , Timothy L. Harris , Alex Kogan , Yosef Lev , Mark S. Moir
- Applicant: Oracle International Corporation
- Applicant Address: US CA Redwood City
- Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
- Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: US CA Redwood City
- Agency: Kowert, Hood, Munyon, Rankin & Goetzel, P.C.
- Agent Robert C. Kowert
- Main IPC: G06F9/52
- IPC: G06F9/52 ; G06F9/46

Abstract:
Transactional Lock Elision allows hardware transactions to execute unmodified critical sections protected by the same lock concurrently, by subscribing to the lock and verifying that it is available before committing the transaction. A “lazy subscription” optimization, which delays lock subscription, can potentially cause behavior that cannot occur when the critical sections are executed under the lock. Hardware extensions may provide mechanisms to ensure that lazy subscriptions are safe (e.g., that they result in correct behavior). Prior to executing a critical section transactionally, its lock and subscription code may be identified (e.g., by writing their locations to special registers). Prior to committing the transaction, the thread executing the critical section may verify that the correct lock was correctly subscribed to. If not, or if locations identified by the special registers have been modified, the transaction may be aborted. Nested critical sections associated with different lock types may invoke different subscription code.
Public/Granted literature
- US20160011915A1 Systems and Methods for Safely Subscribing to Locks Using Hardware Extensions Public/Granted day:2016-01-14
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