Efficient barrier synchronization techniques and their applications in large-scale shared memory multiprocessors

Abstract Shared memory multiprocessors offer a relatively simple programming model and are suitable for a wide variety of parallel applications. Unfortunately, shared memory multiprocessors are not as scalable as distributed memory multiprocessors owing to memory and switch contentions that can result in the formation of hot spots. Spinning on synchronization variables appears to be the main culprit behind the formation of hot spots, affecting system scalability adversely. The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of performing barrier synchronization efficiently in large-scale shared memory multiprocessors. We propose a very simple design for a hardware barrier synchronizer that has the characteristics of what one would call an ideal barrier synchronizer. In particular, the proposed barrier synchronizer allows fast barrier synchronization without injecting spin traffic to create hot spots and can be reused as soon as it has completed a barrier synchronization. We also show that by augmenting this barrier synchronizer with a few gates, it can be used to perform dynamic barrier synchronization, where neither the number, nor the exact identity of processors participating in the barrier is known a priori. We will also show that a low-latency barrier synchronizer can be used not only for high-speed barrier synchronization but also, very profitably, for implementing software combining (allowing distributed hot spot accessing), for data and producer-consumer type synchronization and for the implementation of a variety of other useful applications. A high-speed barrier synchronizer can also be used to implement highly concurrent data structures and will also allow a MIMD (Multiple Instruction streams, Multiple Data streams) system to be effectively operated in a SIMD (Single Instruction stream, Multiple Data streams)-style mode, giving rise to a number of potential advantages. We use simulations to confirm that our proposed synchronizers and their applications outperform the existing barrier synchronization schemes.