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Message-id: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0811071614470.13034@xanadu.home>
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:22:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@....org>
To: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...ymtl.ca>
Cc: David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
akpm@...ux-foundation.org, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
Ralf Baechle <ralf@...ux-mips.org>, benh@...nel.crashing.org,
paulus@...ba.org, David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
linux-arch@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC patch 08/18] cnt32_to_63 should use smp_rmb()
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> First off, read hw cnt low _is_ an uncached memory read (this is the
> mmio read). __m_cnt_hi is a cached read, and therefore can be delayed if
> the cache-line is busy. And we have no control on how much time can pass
> between the two reads given the CPU may stall waiting for a cache-line.
>
> So the scenario above happens if CPU A have __m_cnt_hi in its cacheline,
> but for come reason CPU B have to defer the cacheline read of __m_cnt_hi
> due to heavy cacheline traffic and decides to proceed to mmio read
> before the cacheline has been brought to the CPU because "hey, there is
> no data dependency between those two reads !".
OK that makes sense.
Nicolas
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