US 2004/0064818 A1 · Deferred task swapping in a multithreaded environment

Abstract

A method and system that prepares a task for being swapped out from processor utilization that is executing on a computer with multiple processors that each support multiple streams. The task has one or more teams of threads, where each team represents threads executing on a single processor. The task designates, for each stream that is executing a thread, one stream as a team master stream and one stream as a task master stream. For each team master stream, the task notifies the operating system that the team is ready to be swapped out when each other thread of the team has saved its state and has quit its stream. Finally, for the task master stream, the task notifies the operating system that the task is ready to be swapped when it has saved its state and each other team has notified that it is ready to be swapped out.

Claims17

Dependent claims

A method in a computer system for scheduling tasks, the method comprising:

notifying a task that it is being preempted from processor utilization;
in response to the notification, receiving an indication from the task that it is ready to be swapped out and an indication as to whether the task is blocked;
and
when an indication that the task is blocked is received, deferring the swapping in of the task until an event occurs that may cause the task to become unblocked.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application

10/663,895Filed 16 Sep 2003

Priority

13 Nov 1998

Published

1 Apr 2004

Term ends

Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06F 9/485
By program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system: task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution
G06F 9/461
Multiprogramming arrangements: saving or restoring of program or task context
G06F 9/4812
Task transfer initiation or dispatching: by interrupt, e.g. masked
G06F 9/52
Multiprogramming arrangements: program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores

Deferred task swapping in a multithreaded environment

Life of this patent

Deferred task swapping in a multithreaded environment

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims17