Hardware Versus Software Implementation
Hardware transactional memory systems may comprise modifications in processors, cache and bus protocol to support transactions. Load-link/store-conditional (LL/SC) offered by many RISC processors can be viewed as the most basic transactional memory support. However, LL/SC usually operates on data that is the size of a native machine word.
Software transactional memory provides transactional memory semantics in a software runtime library or the programming language, and requires minimal hardware support (typically an atomic compare and swap operation, or equivalent).
Read more about this topic: Transactional Memory
Famous quotes containing the word hardware:
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)