Home / Definitions / Atomic Operation

Atomic Operation

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:35 am

An operation during which a processor can simultaneously read a location and write it in the same bus operation. This prevents any other processor or I/O device from writing or reading memory until the operation is complete.

Atomic implies indivisibility and irreducibility, so an atomic operation must be performed entirely or not performed at all.