12.6. Semaphore Support for Parallel Processes
Modern operating systems that support either multiple processors or cooperating processes (or threads) require some minimal hardware mechanisms in order to avoid conflicts for shared memory, which could otherwise lead to deadlock or to incorrectly computed results.
The work of Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930–2002) in 1965 on the foundations of a theory of cooperating processes has been continued by many researchers, and books on operating systems treat this subject in detail. Here we shall only indicate that the Itanium architecture provides machine instructions that modify memory atomically, from which semaphores or higher-level mechanisms for resource management and conflict resolution can be constructed. ...
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