Abstract
We examine the use of atomic instructions in implementing barriers that do not require previously initialized memory. We show hown identical processes can use uninitialized shared memory to elect a leader that then initialized the shared memory. The processes first use the uninitialized memory to obtain unique identifiers in the range 0 ton−1 and then meet at a barrier. After passing the barrier, the leader initializes the shared memory. Whenn is not a power of 2 this barrier implementation, a tournament algorithm, avoids extra work by taking advantage of information implicit in the algorithm for obtaining the unique identifiers. The only atomic instruction that we require is one that complements a bit.
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Hemmendinger, D. Initializing memory shared by several processors. Int J Parallel Prog 18, 241–253 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01407858
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01407858