diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/arm')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/arm/00-INDEX | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/arm/swp_emulation | 27 |
2 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/arm/00-INDEX b/Documentation/arm/00-INDEX index ecf7d04bca2..91c24a1e8a9 100644 --- a/Documentation/arm/00-INDEX +++ b/Documentation/arm/00-INDEX @@ -34,3 +34,5 @@ memory.txt - description of the virtual memory layout nwfpe/ - NWFPE floating point emulator documentation +swp_emulation + - SWP/SWPB emulation handler/logging description diff --git a/Documentation/arm/swp_emulation b/Documentation/arm/swp_emulation new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..af903d22fd9 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/arm/swp_emulation @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +Software emulation of deprecated SWP instruction (CONFIG_SWP_EMULATE) +--------------------------------------------------------------------- + +ARMv6 architecture deprecates use of the SWP/SWPB instructions, and recommeds +moving to the load-locked/store-conditional instructions LDREX and STREX. + +ARMv7 multiprocessing extensions introduce the ability to disable these +instructions, triggering an undefined instruction exception when executed. +Trapped instructions are emulated using an LDREX/STREX or LDREXB/STREXB +sequence. If a memory access fault (an abort) occurs, a segmentation fault is +signalled to the triggering process. + +/proc/cpu/swp_emulation holds some statistics/information, including the PID of +the last process to trigger the emulation to be invocated. For example: +--- +Emulated SWP: 12 +Emulated SWPB: 0 +Aborted SWP{B}: 1 +Last process: 314 +--- + +NOTE: when accessing uncached shared regions, LDREX/STREX rely on an external +transaction monitoring block called a global monitor to maintain update +atomicity. If your system does not implement a global monitor, this option can +cause programs that perform SWP operations to uncached memory to deadlock, as +the STREX operation will always fail. + |