Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
14 years ago

multiprocessor and mutex question

Hi,

My design contain two CPU's. Each have his own on-chip-RAM.

My question is:

If I want that CPU1 could read the CPU2's RAM, do I need to use mutex?

Thanks.

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    14 years ago

    It depends on the application. If you only need to read one word (32 bits) then you don't need a mutex. If you need to read a whole block made of several words, and need that block to be consistent, then you need a mutex. Without the mutex, if CPU1 is writing the block while CPU2 is reading it, then the CPU2 will get a mix of the old and the new block, which may have some undesirable consequences.