Distributed Synchronization for Message-Passing Based Embedded Multiprocessors

Abstract

This paper presents a synchronization mechanism to effectively implement the lock and barrier protocols in a decentralized manner through explicit message passing. In the proposed solution, a simple and efficient synchronization control mechanism is proposed to support queued synchronization without contention. By using state-of-the-art Application-Specific Instruction-set Processor (ASIP) technology, we embed the synchronization functionality into a baseline processor, making the proposed mechanism feature ultra-low overhead. Experimental results show the proposed synchronization achieves ultra-low latency and almost ideal scalability when the number of processors increases.