Intel Corp. said that its next-generation multi-core processor code-named Haswell will support Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX). These new synchronization extensions are useful in shared-memory multithreaded applications that employ lock-based synchronization mechanisms. Thanks to TSX, specially written applications will run faster on multi-core/multi-threaded chips.

Intel TSX provides a set of instruction set extensions that allow programmers to specify regions of code for transactional synchronization. Programmers can use these extensions to achieve the performance of fine-grain locking while actually programming using coarse-grain locks. With transactional synchronization, the hardware can determine dynamically whether threads need to serialize through lock-protected critical sections, and perform serialization only when required. This lets the processor expose and exploit concurrency that would otherwise be hidden due to dynamically unnecessary synchronization.

At the lowest level with Intel TSX, programmer-specified code regions (also referred to as transactional regions) are executed transactionally. If the transactional execution completes successfully, then all memory operations performed within the transactional region will appear to have occurred instantaneously when viewed from other logical processors. A processor makes architectural updates performed within the region visible to other logical processors only on a successful commit, a process referred to as an atomic commit.

These extensions can help achieve the performance of fine-grain locking while using coarser grain locks. These extensions can also allow locks around critical sections while avoiding unnecessary serializations. If multiple threads execute critical sections protected by the same lock but they do not perform any conflicting operations on each other’s data, then the threads can execute concurrently and without serialization. Even though the software uses lock acquisition operations on a common lock, the hardware is allowed to recognize this, elide the lock, and execute the critical sections on the two threads without requiring any communication through the lock if such communication was dynamically unnecessary.

While Intel TSX may enable efficient implementations of new programming models, it does not require a new programming model and does not propose a new programming model. Intel TSX provides hardware-supported transactional-execution extensions to ease the development and improve the performance of existing programming models.

Intel TSX targets a certain class of shared-memory multi-threaded applications; specifically multi-threaded applications that actively share data. Intel TSX is about allowing programs to achieve fine-grain lock performance without requiring the complexity of reasoning about fine-grain locking.

Tags: Intel, Haswell, 22nm, TSX