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Lock Contention (OpenMP)

Metric Description

Lock Contention time is CPU time when OpenMP working threads are spinning on a lock consuming CPU resources. High metric value may signal inefficient parallelization with highly contended synchronization objects. To avoid intensive synchronization, consider using reduction, atomic operations or thread local variables where possible.

Possible Issues

When synchronization objects are used inside a parallel region, threads can spend CPU time waiting on a lock release, contending with other threads for a shared resource. Where possible, reduce synchronization by using reduction or atomic operations, or minimize the amount of code executed inside the critical section.

See Also