Atomic Semantics is a term which describes the guarantees provided by a data register shared by several processors in a parallel machine or in a network of computers working together.
Atomic semantics are defined for a variable with a single writer but multiple readers. These semantics are very strong: they guarantee that the read and write operations to the variable behave exactly as if they happened instantaneously in some point in time which is within the actual time where the operation took place.
Famous quotes containing the word atomic:
“The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)