Load-Linked and Store-Conditional

Explore how load-linked and store-conditional instructions help implement atomic locks for concurrency control. Understand their behavior on architectures such as MIPS, ARM, and PowerPC. Practice building critical sections atomically and analyze how these instructions ensure only one thread acquires a lock at a time. This lesson develops skills for handling synchronization and preventing race conditions in concurrent systems.

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- A challenge

Some platforms provide a pair of instructions that work in concert to help build critical sections. On the MIPS architecture“MIPS R4000 Microprocessor User’s Manual” by Joe Heinrich. Prentice-Hall, June 1993. Available: http://cag.csail.mit.edu/raw/documents/R4400 Uman book Ed2.pdf. The old MIPS user’s manual. Download it while it still exists., for example, the load-linked and store-conditional instructions can be used in tandem to build locks and other concurrent structures. The C pseudocode for these instructions is as found in the code excerpt below. ...