How SMPng Works and Why It Doesn't Work The Way You Think

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>

Modern x86 CPUs have hit a wall in frequency scaling and are now expanding sideways by adding more cores. Adding more cores does not magically multiply performance, however. John talks about some of the reasons that it doesn’t.

In 2000, FreeBSD launched a project to multithread its kernel to more fully take advantage of modern SMP machines. This talk will give an overview of that project’s history and continuing work on improving scalability.

  • slides.pdf (89 kb)