Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A reliable and performant mechanism for communicating between independent processes, threads or parts of a computer system is described in which conditional atomic counters are used to manage a message queue. The conditional atomic counters control access to a message queue or memory space in a simple and reliable manner while minimizing the overhead of access to the mutex gate objects typically used in the implementation of message queues of the prior art. When implemented in software, a producer count and consumer count are maintained using conditional atomic store instructions with the condition on the store ensuring that one and only one producer or consumer of message records can actually post or receive validation of any specific message record. A counterpart implementation in hardware utilizes hardware mechanisms equivalent to those invoked by the software program.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim