An Optimal Algorithm for Global Termination Detection in Shared-Memory Asynchronous Multiprocessor Systems

In the literature the problem of global termination detection in shared-memory asynchronous multiprocessor systems is solved by using exclusively accessible variables and locking mechanism. In this paper we present an algorithm that solves this problem without using locking. We assume that concurrent reading does not require locking and concurrent writing diierent values without locking results in arbitrary one of the values being actually written. For a system of n processors, the algorithm allocates a working space of 2n+1 bits. The worst case time complexity of the algorithm is n + 2 p n + 1, which we prove is the lower bound.