发明名称 |
System and method for providing forward progress and avoiding starvation and livelock in a multiprocessor computer system |
摘要 |
A system and method avoids "livelock" and "starvation" among two or more input/output (I/O) devices of a symmetrical multiprocessor (SMP) computer system competing for the same data. The SMP computer system includes a plurality of interconnected processors, one or more memories that are shared by the processors, and a plurality of I/O bridges to which the I/O devices are coupled. A cache coherency protocol is executed the I/O bridges, which requires the I/O bridges to obtain "exclusive" (not shared) ownership of all data stored by the bridges. In response to a request for data currently stored by an I/O bridge, the bridge first copies at least a portion of that data to a non-coherent buffer before invalidating the data. The bridge then takes the largest amount of the data saved in its non-coherent buffer that its knows to be coherent, and releases only that known coherent amount to the I/O device, and then discards all of the saved data.
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申请公布号 |
US6647453(B1) |
申请公布日期 |
2003.11.11 |
申请号 |
US20000652984 |
申请日期 |
2000.08.31 |
申请人 |
HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. |
发明人 |
DUNCAN SAMUEL H.;HO STEVEN |
分类号 |
G06F12/08;(IPC1-7):G06F13/36;G06F13/00;G06F12/00 |
主分类号 |
G06F12/08 |
代理机构 |
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