[PATCH 0/3] coupled cpuidle state support

[arjan@linux.intel.com (Arjan van de Ven)]

On 12/21/2011 10:55 AM, Colin Cross wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 1:44 AM, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>> On 12/21/2011 10:40 AM, Colin Cross wrote:
>>
>>>> this smells fundamentally racey to me; you can get an interrupt one
>>>> cycle after you think you're done, but before the last guy enters WFI...
>>>>
>>>> how do you solve that issue ?
>>>
>>> All the cpus have interrupts off when they increment the counter, so
>>> they cannot receive an interrupt.  If an interrupt is pending on one
>>> of those cpus, it will be handled later when WFI aborts due to the
>>> pending interrupt.
>>
>> ... but this leads to cases where you're aborting before other cpus are
>> entering..... so your "last guy in" doesn't really work, since while cpu
>> 0 thinks it's the last guy, cpu 1 is already on the way out/out
>> already...  (heck it might already be going back to sleep if your idle
>> code can run fast, like in the size of a cache miss)
> 
> Once a cpu has incremented the counter, it has no way out unless either
> 1: another cpu (that hasn't incremented the counter yet) receives an
> interrupt, aborts idle, and clears its idle flag
> or
> 2: all cpus enter the ready counter, and call the cpuidle driver's
> enter function.

.. or it enters WFI, and a physical device sends it an interrupt,
at which point it exits.