multithreaded

1 definition found

multithreaded - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  multithreading
  multithreaded
  
     <parallel> Sharing a single CPU between multiple tasks (or
     "threads") in a way designed to minimise the time required to
     switch threads.  This is accomplished by sharing as much as
     possible of the program execution environment between the
     different threads so that very little state needs to be saved
     and restored when changing thread.
  
     Multithreading differs from multitasking in that threads
     share more of their environment with each other than do tasks
     under multitasking.  Threads may be distinguished only by the
     value of their program counters and stack pointers while
     sharing a single address space and set of global variables
     .  There is thus very little protection of one
     thread from another, in contrast to multitasking.
  
     Multithreading can thus be used for very fine-grain
     multitasking, at the level of a few instructions, and so can
     hide latency by keeping the processor busy after one thread
     issues a long-latency instruction on which subsequent
     instructions in that thread depend.
  
     A light-weight process is somewhere between a thread and a
     full process.
  
     TL0 is an example of a threaded machine language.
     Dataflow computation (E.g. Id and SISAL) is an extreme
     form of multithreading.
  
     (1997-12-23)