MaGe Linux Operations

Jun 30, 2022 · Fundamentals

How x86 and ARM Achieve Atomic Operations: LOCK Prefix and Exclusive Access

This article explains which instruction sets support atomic operations, detailing the principles behind x86’s LOCK prefix and ARM’s exclusive load/store mechanisms, illustrating how single‑processor and SMP systems handle atomicity, and showing Linux kernel implementations for atomic increment and compare‑and‑swap.