JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 13(6): 817-829, doi: 10.3217/jucs-013-06-0817
A New Architecture for Concurrent Lazy Cyclic Reference Counting on Multi-Processor Systems
expand article infoAndrei de Araújo Formiga‡, Rafael Dueire Lins§
‡ Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil§ Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

Corresponding author: Andrei Formiga ( andrei.formiga@gmail.com )

© Andrei Formiga, Rafael Lins.
This article is freely available under the J.UCS Open Content License.
Citation: Formiga AA, Lins RD (2007) A New Architecture for Concurrent Lazy Cyclic Reference Counting on Multi-Processor Systems. JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 13(6): 817-829. https://doi.org/10.3217/jucs-013-06-0817
Open Access
Abstract
Multi-processor systems have become the standard in current computer architectures. Software developers have the possibility to take advantage of the additional computing power available to concurrent programs. This paper presents a way to automatically use additional processors, by performing memory management concurrently. A new architecture with little explicit synchronization for concurrent lazy cyclic reference counting is described. This architecture was implemented and preliminary performance tests point at significant efficiency improvements over the sequential counterpart.
Keywords
memory management, garbage collection, reference counting, concurrent garbage collection