The Unabridged Pentium 4 IA32 Processor Genealogy

Introduction

The previous chapter, “Pentium® 4 Priority Agent Arbitration” on page 1165, described how the assertion of LOCK# by a symmetric agent prevents a Priority Agent from acquiring ownership. This section describes the reasons why a symmetric agent might need to perform a series of transactions without fear of any other agent performing an access in between its own transactions.