Abstract: A synchronous method for a multi-processor system and the apparatus thereof are provided. The method comprises the following steps. First, a request for acquiring a spinlock from a processor is received and then the status of the spinlock is returned to the processor. If the spinlock is in an unlock state, the spinlock is changed to a locked state. If the spinlock is already in the locked state, the clock signal to the processor is suspended so that the processor is suspended and the suspended processor is added to a queue. Then, when a request for releasing the spinlock is received from a processor, the spinlock is changed to the unlocked state. Finally, if there are other processors waiting in the queue, one of the processors is selected from the queue according to a predetermined policy and the clock signal of the selected processor is resumed.

Abstract: A device and method for hardware semaphore is provided to be used in a multi-processor system. The device for hardware semaphore comprises a plurality of semaphores, a semaphore module register set, a control logic unit, a bus interface unit, and an interrupt generation unit. According to the invention, a single read operation of a memory location can allocate or acquire a semaphore, the hardware control logic circuit atomically execute the test and set operations. A hardware semaphore itself is considered as a shared resource. The multi-processor system can use a single read operation to request for the allocation of a specific or a random semaphore. The multi-processor system can also use a single read operation to request for the acquisition of a specific semaphore. The hardware semaphore device sets up interrupt signals to notify the processors in the system about the release of a semaphore which the processors fail to acquire.