Mechanism to exploit synchronization overhead to improve multithreaded performance

摘要

Method, apparatus, and program means for a programmable event driven yield mechanism that may activate other threads. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes execution resources to execute a plurality of instructions and an event detector to detect a long latency event associated with a synchronization object. The event detector can cause a first thread switch in response to the long latency event associated with the synchronization object. The apparatus may also include a spin detector to detect that the synchronization object is a contended synchronization object. The spin detector can cause a second thread switch in response to the detection of the contended synchronization object to enable a spin detect response.