SICSA DVF Masterclass: “Shared Memory and Memory Consistency Models”

Date/Time
Date(s) - 12/10/2017 - 13/10/2017
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Location
The Informatics Forum


SICSA Distinguished Visiting Fellow Professor Daniel Sorin, Duke University will be delivering a Masterclass on Shared Memory and Memory Consistency Models at the Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh on 12th & 13th October.

Abstract:
Most general-purpose multicore processors provide hardware support for shared memory, in which threads running on all of the cores can access the shared memory system. Modern multicore memory systems include multiple levels of caches, some of which might be shared across multiple cores, and off-chip main memory. Threads communicate with each other by performing loads (reads) and stores (writes) to shared memory locations that may or may not be present in caches. To enable programmers to reason about concurrent accesses to shared memory locations without having to consider the hardware implementation, every architecture supports an implementation-independent memory consistency model that specifies the legal behaviors of shared memory systems. Notably, the consistency model governs what orderings and interleavings of memory accesses (loads and stores) are possible. Different architectures (IA-32, Power, SPARC, etc.) can have different consistency models. In this class, we learn about shared memory architectures and memory consistency models.

Bio:
Daniel J. Sorin is the Addy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University.  His research interests are in computer architecture, with a focus on fault tolerance, verification, and memory system design.  He is the author of “Fault Tolerant Computer Architecture” and a co-author of “A Primer on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence.”  He is the recipient of a SICSA Distinguished Visiting Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Career Award, and Duke’s Imhoff Distinguished Teaching Award.  He received a PhD and MS in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and he received a BSE in electrical engineering from Duke University.

If you would like to come along to either of the Master Classes make sure you sign in at the Reception desk at the Informatics Forum.

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