Spinlock versus Semaphore

Question

What are the basic differences between a semaphore & spin-lock?

When would we use a semaphore over a spin-lock?

Answer 1

A "mutex" (or "mutual exclusion lock") is a signal that two or more asynchronous processes can use to reserve a shared resource for exclusive use. The first process that obtains ownership of the "mutex" also obtains ownership of the shared resource. Other processes must wait for for the first process to release it's ownership of the "mutex" before they may attempt to obtain it.

The most common locking primitive in the kernel is the spinlock. The spinlock is a very simple single-holder lock. If a process attempts to acquire a spinlock and it is unavailable, the process will keep trying (spinning) until it can acquire the lock. This simplicity creates a small and fast lock.

Answer 2

Spinlock is used if and only if you are pretty certain that your expected result will happen very shortly, before your thread's execution slice time expires.

Example: In device driver module, The driver writes "0" in hardware Register R0 and now it needs to wait for that R0 register to become 1. The H/W reads the R0 and does some work and writes "1" in R0. This is generally quick(in micro seconds). Now spinning is much better than going to sleep and interrupted by the H/W. Of course, while spinning, H/W failure condition needs to be taken care!

There is absolutely no reason for a user application to spin. It doesn't make sense. You are going to spin for some event to happen and that event needs to be completed by another user level application which is never guaranteed to happen within quick time frame. So, I will not spin at all in user mode. I better to sleep() or mutexlock() or semaphore lock() in user mode.

Answer 3

From Linux Device Drivers by Rubinni

Unlike semaphores, spinlocks may be used in code that cannot sleep, such as interrupt handlers

Answer 4

very simply, a semaphore is a "yielding" synchronisation object, a spinlock is a 'busywait' one. (there's a little more to semaphores in that they synchronise several threads, unlike a mutex or guard or monitor or critical section that protects a code region from a single thread)

You'd use a semaphore in more circumstances, but use a spinlock where you are going to lock for a very short time - there is a cost to locking especially if you lock a lot. In such cases it can be more efficient to spinlock for a little while waiting for the protected resource to become unlocked. Obviously there is a performance hit if you spin for too long.

typically if you spin for longer than a thread quantum, then you should use a semaphore.

Answer 5

Spinlock refers to an implementation of inter-thread locking using machine dependent assembly instructions (such as test-and-set). It is called a spinlock because the thread simply waits in a loop ("spins") repeatedly checking until the lock becomes available (busy wait). Spinlocks are used as a substitute for mutexes, which are a facility supplied by operating systems (not the CPU), because spinlocks perform better, if locked for a short period of time.

A Semaphor is a facility supplied by operating systems for IPC, therefor it's main purpose is inter-process-communication. Being a facility supplied by the operating system it's performance will not be as good as that of a spinlock for inter-thead locking (although possible). Semaphores are better for locking for longer periods of time.

That said - implementing splinlocks in assembly is tricky, and not portable.