Wait-Free Algorithms for Heaps

This paper examines algorithms to implement heaps on shared memory multiprocessors. A natural model for these machines is an asynchronous parallel machine, in which the processors are subject to arbitrary delays. On such machines, it is desirable for algorithms to be wait-free, meaning that each thread makes progress independent of the other threads executing on the machine. We present a waitfree algorithm to implement heaps. The algorithms are similar to the general approach given in [4], with optimizations that allow many threads to work on the heap simultaneously, while still guaranteeing a strong serializability property.