Relaxed Memory Model Zoo

Processor Consistency (PC)
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Processor Consistency PC

1989 · Goodman · theoretical, formal · axiomatic formalism

Goodman's processor consistency: PRAM consistency together with cache consistency — writes by each process are seen by all processes in the order issued, and all writes to a single location are seen in one sequential order. Strictly weaker than SC; strictly stronger than both PRAM and cache consistency; incomparable to causal consistency.

Properties

Property vector author-extrapolated — set only where the model’s definition pins the cell down (unknown cells are omitted); cells citing a specific source are marked.

Reasoning guarantees
  • yes Coherence
Atomicity guarantees
  • no Multicopy atomic

Ordering relationships

Strictly weaker than
  • Sequential Consistency (SC) — Sequential consistency is strictly stronger than processor consistency (Goodman 1989; Steinke & Nutt 2004).
Strictly stronger than
  • PRAM (Pipelined RAM) Consistency — Processor consistency is strictly stronger than PRAM consistency (Goodman 1989; Steinke & Nutt 2004).
  • Cache Coherence — Processor consistency is strictly stronger than cache consistency (Goodman 1989; Steinke & Nutt 2004). The Coherence node is Goodman's cache consistency.
Incomparable with
  • Causal Consistency — Processor and causal consistency are incomparable: each forbids a behaviour the other allows (Steinke & Nutt 2004).

References

  • James R. Goodman. Cache Consistency and Sequential Consistency. Technical Report 61, IEEE Scalable Coherent Interface Working Group / University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989.
  • Robert C. Steinke, Gary J. Nutt. A Unified Theory of Shared Memory Consistency. Journal of the ACM 51(5), 2004. arxiv.org/abs/cs/0208027
  • Sarita V. Adve, Kourosh Gharachorloo. Shared Memory Consistency Models: A Tutorial. IEEE Computer 29(12), 1996. doi:10.1109/2.546611