A semaphore in computational architecture is a synchronization object that is used to manage access to a shared resource in a multi-threaded environment. It is essentially a data structure that provides a mechanism for multiple processes or threads to communicate and coordinate their activities. Semaphores can be used to prevent race conditions, deadlocks, and other synchronization problems that can arise when multiple processes or threads attempt to access a shared resource simultaneously. They work by allowing one process or thread to access the shared resource at a time, while all others are blocked until the resource is released. Semaphores can be implemented as either binary or counting semaphores, depending on their specific requirements.
Publication date: