On the definition of sequential consistency

Authors:
Ali Sezgin;Ganesh Gopalakrishnan
Affiliations:
Atilim University, Department of Computer Engineering, Incek, Golbasi, Ankara, Turkey;School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Venue:
Information Processing Letters
Year:
2005

Citing 2
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Linearizability: a correctness condition for concurrent objects

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS)
Formalization and verification of shared memory

Formalization and verification of shared memory

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Abstract

The definition of sequential consistency is compared with an intuitive notion of correctness. That the definition is not strong enough is illustrated through a hypothetical memory system which is clearly incorrect, yet sequentially consistent. It is claimed that the reason for this is the absence of a relation between what actually happens (temporal order) and what seems to happen (logical order). A stronger version of sequential consistency is proposed.