Gate close balking for fair gating in a nonuniform memory architecture data processing system

摘要

In a NUMA architecture, processors in the same CPU module with a processor opening a spin gate tend to have preferential access to a spin gate in memory when attempting to close the spin gate. This "unfair" memory access to the desired spin gate can result in starvation of processors from other CPU modules. This problem is solved by "balking" or delaying a specified period of time before attempting to close a spin gate whenever either one of the processors in the same CPU module just opened the desired spin gate, or when a processor in another CPU module is spinning trying to close the spin gate. Each processor detects when it is spinning on a spin gate. It then transmits that information to the processors in other CPU modules, allowing them to balk when opening spin gates.