Do multi-core CPUs share the MMU and page tables?

multithreading operating-system hardware multicore mmu
Manuel Selva picture Manuel Selva · Mar 29, 2012 · Viewed 9.9k times · Source

On a single core computer, one thread is executing at a time. On each context switch the scheduler checks if the new thread to schedule is in the same process than the previous one. If so, nothing needs to be done regarding the MMU (pages table). In the other case, the pages table needs to be updated with the new process pages table.

I am wondering how things happen on a multi-core computer. I guess there is a dedicated MMU on each core, and if two threads of the same process are running simultaneously on 2 cores, each of this core's MMU simply refer to the same page table. Is this true ? Can you point me to good references on the subject ?

Answer

Rsh picture Rsh · Sep 10, 2012

Take a look at this scheme. This is high level view of all that there is in a single core on a Corei7 cpu. The picture has been taken from Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, Bryant and Hallaron. You can have access to diagrams in here, section 9.21.

Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, 2/E (CS:APP2e)Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron, Carnegie Mellon University

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