摘要 |
A symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) system includes a plurality of central processing units (CPUs). Processing by a central processing unit (CPU) is safely halted i.e., a CPU is shut down, using a technique that assures that the CPU is executing an idle thread when the CPU is shut down. Halting the CPU safely means (a) that the CPU cannot be executing a thread other than the idle thread, and (b) that state information for a thread does not reside only within the CPU. The first limitation assures that the CPU cannot be executing a time critical thread that fails if the execution of the time critical thread has to move to another CPU.
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