Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Stephen Paynter, Neil Henderson, Dr James Armstrong
Metastability can undermine the correctness of protocols which are demonstrably correct when metastability is ignored, e.g. when shared bits are assumed to be L(amport)-safe registers. We establish this using the CSP process algebra and the FDR2 model-checker, which we use to investigate the impact of various models of shared bits on different wait-free protocols, including Lamport's regular register, Simpson's 4-slot ACM; Kirousis et. al's ACM; Tromp's Atomic Bit and 4-Track ACMs; and Haldar and Subramanian's ACM. On the one hand, these ACMs exhibit different failure modes when metastability effects defeat hardware design measures to contain them. In this case the commonly used L-safe bit abstraction might rule out possible failure behaviours. On the other hand, most of these ACMs function correctly when metastability is resolved between instructions. In this case the L-safe abstraction permits failure behaviours which would not actually occur. Consequently, impossibility results concerning ACMs which are based on L-safe bit models may be pessimistic. We demonstrate this by showing that Simpson's 4-slot ACM functions correctly when constraints associated with metastability containment hold.
Author(s): Paynter SE, Henderson N, Armstrong JM
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: School of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year: 2004
Pages: 23
Print publication date: 01/09/2004
Source Publication Date: September 2004
Report Number: 859
Institution: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
URL: http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/859.pdf
