well, the only atmoic operations supported by the x86 are ADD, ADC, AND,
BTC, BTR, BTS, CMPXCHG, CMPXCH8B, DEC, INC, NEG, NOT, OR, SBB, SUB, XOR,
XADD, and XCHG. The lock mechanism is only in effect for the suration of th eopcode
LOCK
—Assert LOCK# Signal Prefix
Description
Causes the processor
’s LOCK# signal to be asserted during execution of the accompanying
instruction (turns the instruction into an atomic instruction). In a multiprocessor environment,
the LOCK# signal insures that the processor has exclusive use of any shared memory while the
signal is asserted.
Note that in later IA-32 processors (including the Pentium 4, Intel Xeon, and P6 family processors),
locking may occur without the LOCK# signal being asserted. See IA-32 Architecture
Compatibility below.
The LOCK prefix can be prepended only to the following instructions and only to those forms
of the instructions where the destination operand is a memory operand: ADD, ADC, AND,
BTC, BTR, BTS, CMPXCHG, CMPXCH8B, DEC, INC, NEG, NOT, OR, SBB, SUB, XOR,
XADD, and XCHG. If the LOCK prefix is used with one of these instructions and the source
operand is a memory operand, an undefined opcode exception (#UD) may be generated. An
undefined opcode exception will also be generated if the LOCK prefix is used with any instruction
not in the above list. The XCHG instruction always asserts the LOCK# signal regardless of
the presence or absence of the LOCK prefix.
The LOCK prefix is typically used with the BTS instruction to perform a read-modify-write
operation on a memory location in shared memory environment.
The integrity of the LOCK prefix is not affected by the alignment of the memory field. Memory
locking is observed for arbitrarily misaligned fields.
IA-32 Architecture Compatibility
Beginning with the P6 family processors, when the LOCK prefix is prefixed to an instruction
and the memory area being accessed is cached internally in the processor, the LOCK# signal is
generally not asserted. Instead, only the processor’s cache is locked. Here, the processor’s cache
coherency mechanism insures that the operation is carried out atomically with regards to
memory. See “Effects of a Locked Operation on Internal Processor Caches” in Chapter 7 of IA-
32 Intel Architecture Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 3, the for more information on
locking of caches.
Operation
AssertLOCK#(DurationOfAccompaningInstruction)
Opcode Instruction Description
F0 LOCK Asserts LOCK# signal for duration of the accompanying
instruction
3-427
INSTRUCTION SET REFERENCE, A-M
LOCK
—Assert LOCK# Signal Prefix (Continued)
Flags Affected
None.
Protected Mode Exceptions
#UD If the LOCK prefix is used with an instruction not listed in the
“Description”
section above. Other exceptions can be generated by the instruction
that the LOCK prefix is being applied to.
Real-Address Mode Exceptions
#UD If the LOCK prefix is used with an instruction not listed in the
“Description”
section above. Other exceptions can be generated by the instruction
that the LOCK prefix is being applied to.
Virtual-8086 Mode Exceptions
#UD If the LOCK prefix is used with an instruction not listed in the
“Description”
section above. Other exceptions can be generated by the instruction
that the LOCK prefix is being applied to.