Semaphore access control buffer and method for accelerated semaphore operations

摘要

A spin buffer and associated method assure data integrity in shared resources in a computer system. Concurrent accesses to different semaphores by different devices are allowed. Lock and identification data within the semaphore is cached in the spin buffer so a device requesting access to a shared resource that corresponds to a semaphore that is represented in the spin buffer may determine whether any other device has ownership of the shared resource by accessing the data within the spin buffer, rather than reading from the semaphore. By caching semaphore lock information and allowing concurrent accesses to different semaphores by different devices, enhances system performance is achieved.