powerpc/64s: Implement local_t using irq soft masking

local_t is used for atomic modifications for per-CPU data, versus
re-entrant modifications via interrupts.

local_t read-modify-write atomic operations are currently implemented
with hardware atomics (larx/stcx), which are quite slow. This patch
implements them by masking all types of interrupts that may do local_t
operations ("standard" and perf interrupts).

Rusty's benchmark (https://lkml.org/lkml/2008/12/16/450) gives the
following timings for the local_t test, in nanoseconds per iteration:

             larx/stcx   irq+pmu disable
_inc                38                10
_add                38                10
_read                4                 4
_add_return         38                10

There are still some interrupt types (system reset, machine check, and
watchdog), which can not safely use local_t operations, because they
are not masked.

An alternative approach was proposed, using a CR bit to mark a critical
section, which is tested in the interrupt return path, and would then
branch to a fixup handler (similar to exception fixups), which re-starts
the operation. The problem with this was the complexity of the fixup
handler and the latency of the slow path.

https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/linuxppc-dev/2014-November/123024.html

Signed-off-by: Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>

0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions