Capsules: A Shared Memory Access Mechanism.

A concurrent program consists of a set of processes cooperating to achieve a common goal. Typically, processes communicate by exchanging messages or by updating shared memory. Many of the recent multiprocessors have been based on shared memory architectures. The capsule is a new mechanism for controlling access to shared memory. The design of this mechanism was prompted by the porting of Concurrent C/C++, which does not have explicit facilities for controlling access to shared memory, to a shared memory multiprocessor. Capsules are like monitors but there are several differences.