Arm Barriers 101: Part #2: How Barriers Work In Hardware

Interconnects, Shareability domains, and what the hardware is doing when we execute a barrier in software.

What you'll learn

Discover how Arm AMBA-based cache coherent interconnects work.

Explore how Shareability domains are defined in hardware.

Visualise memory transactions flowing through the interconnect fabric.

Learn how barriers work when being broadcast onto the interconnect for it to handle on behalf of the CPU.

Learn how barriers work when they are being handled internally to the CPU.

Requirements

Beginner friendly!

Assumes no prior Arm Architecture experience.

Some basic C/C++ programming experience is recommended, but not required.

Strongly recommended to take our "Arm Barriers 101: Part #1: Getting started with barriers" course first.

Description

Welcome to Part 2 of our Barriers 101 training course, a comprehensive deep dive on barriers in the Arm® Architecture.This course is suitable for software engineers working on Arm-based platforms on system-level software, from down at the firmware layer all the way up through to the kernel, hypervisor, and device drivers.In these lessons, you'll learn:How Arm AMBA®-based cache coherent interconnects work.How Shareability domains are defined in hardware.How barriers work when they're being broadcast onto the interconnect.How barriers work when they're being handled internally to the CPU.From beginner to expert: Our courses are suitable for all levels of experience, whether you're already a seasoned veteran of the Arm Architecture or you're seeing Arm Barriers for the very first time.How it really works: Our courses go both broader and deeper on the topic of barriers than anyone else; we show you how things really work, and more importantly, why.Learning is doing: Reinforce your learning with 30 multiple-choice quiz questions including a video walkthrough of each question and answer.Recognised trainer: Our courses are written and produced by Ash Wilding, formerly one of Arm's lead technical trainers and a kernel engineer at both Amazon AWS and Apple.

Overview

Section 1: How barriers work in hardware

Lecture 1 Interconnects and snoop requests

Lecture 2 Sequencing of coherent writes

Lecture 3 Defining Shareability domains in hardware

Lecture 4 Shareability on modern AMBA systems

Lecture 5 Broadcasting barriers onto the interconnect

Lecture 6 Distributed mesh network propagation

Lecture 7 DMA-capable peripheral devices

Lecture 8 Handling barriers internally to the CPU

Lecture 9 Quiz

Engineers at all experience levels working on Arm-based platforms.,Firmware Engineers.,Kernel Engineers.,Hypervisor Engineers.,Device Driver Engineers.