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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD)
AMD 236.73-6.1%Jan 30 9:30 AM EST

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To: fastpathguru who wrote (239559)8/30/2007 2:00:50 AM
From: graphicsguruRead Replies (1) of 275872
 
I don't design CPU's for a living, so I can't really fill in all the blanks for
the worst-case complexity. But here's the type of crazy edge case that
has to work correctly.

Processors A and B both try to do atomic increments on cache line
x at the same time that a top priority real-time DMA steals most
or all of the bandwidth between A and B and the DMA tries to modify the same
line. Cache line x is resident in processor C, which happens at that
very moment to be trying to evict the line just as a dram refresh cycle
begins on the corresponding memory address. Processor D had a
write request started on the same cache line due to a branch that it
just figured out was mispredicted. I don't know. That's for openers.

Maybe I'm just not looking at this kind of situation correctly, and it's
really simple as you say.

Or maybe it's really complicated to get every last edge case to work
with absolute backwards compatibility, and that's why it has taken Intel
so long to put CSI together.

At least, I'm glad my head isn't on the line when it comes to guaranteeing
the schem is absolutely correct. Sounds like you're volunteering for
the job.
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