Non Blocking Garbage Collection for Multiprocessors

Garbage collection algorithms for shared memory multiprocessors typically rely on some form of global synchronization to preserve consistency Neverthe less such global synchronization is poorly suited for asynchronous architectures if one process is halted or delayed other non faulty processes will be unable to progress By contrast a storage management algorithm is non blocking if in the absence of resource exhaustion a process that is allocating or collect ing memory can undergo a substantial delay without forcing other processes to block This paper presents the rst algorithm for non blocking garbage collec tion in a realistic model The algorithm assumes that processes synchronize by applying read write and compare swap operations to shared memory This algorithm uses no locks or busy waiting it does not assume that processes can observe or modify one another s local variables or registers and it does not use inter process interrupts