Synchronizing scheduling tasks with atomic alu

A scheduling module comprising:

• one or more queues arranged to store scheduled tasks;
• and
• hardware logic arranged, in response to receiving an instruction from an instruction decoder decoding a synchronization instruction in a scheduled task from a group of tasks, to place the scheduled task into a non-active state wherein no instructions in the scheduled task are executed except for the synchronization instruction;
• wherein the decoded synchronization instruction causes an ALU that executes the synchronization instruction to perform a check on data assigned to the group of tasks.

A processor comprising:

• a scheduling module including:
• one or more queues arranged to store scheduled tasks;
• and
• hardware logic arranged, in response to receiving an instruction from an instruction decoder decoding a synchronization instruction in a scheduled task from a group of tasks, to place the scheduled task into a non-active state wherein no instructions in the scheduled task are executed except for the synchronization instruction;
• wherein the decoded synchronization instruction causes an ALU to perform a check on data assigned to the group of tasks.