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THREADS

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Gursharan Singh Tatla
professorgstatla@gmail.com
 THREAD
 A thread is a single sequential flow of execution of the

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tasks of a process.
 A thread is a lightweight process and the smallest unit of

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CPU utilization. Thus, a thread is like a miniprocess.
 Each thread has a thread id, program counter, register set
and a stack.
 A thread undergoes different states such as new, ready,
running, waiting and terminated similar to that of a
process.
 However, a thread is not a program as it cannot run on its
own. It runs within a program.
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 MULTI-THREADING
 A process can have single thread of control or multiple

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threads of control.
 If a process has single thread of control, it can perform

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only one task at a time.
 Many modern operating systems have extended the
process concept to allow a process to have multiple
threads.
 Thus, allowing the process to perform multiple tasks at
the same time.
 This concept is known as Multi-Threading.
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 MULTI-THREADING
 For e.g.:

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 The tasks in a web browser are divided into multiple threads.
 Downloading the images, downloading the text and

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displaying images and text.
 While one thread is busy in downloading the images, another
thread displays it.
 The various operating systems the implement
multithreading are Windows XP, Vista, 7, Server 2000
onwards, Linux etc.
 In multithreading, a thread can share its code, data and
resources with other threads of same process.
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SINGLE THREAD & MULTI-THREAD

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 THREADS & PROCESSES
 An idea of how threads & processes can be related to

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each other is depicted in the fig.:

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 THREADS & PROCESSES
 There are several similarities and differences between a

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thread and a process:
 Similarities:

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 Like process, each thread has its own program counter and stack.
 Threads share CPU just as a process.
 Threads also run sequentially, like a process.
 Threads can create child threads.
 Threads have the same states as process: new, ready, running,
waiting and terminated.

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 THREADS & PROCESSES
 Differences:

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 Each process has its own distinct address space in the main memory.
On the other hand, all threads of a same process share same address
space.

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 Threads require less system resources than a process.
 Threads are not independent of each other, unlike processes.
 Threads take less time for creation and termination than a process.
 It takes less time to switch between two threads than to switch
between two processes.

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 TYPES OF THREADS
 Threads are of three types:

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 Kernel Level Threads

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 User Level Threads

 Hybrid Threads

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 KERNEL LEVEL THREADS
 Threads of processes defined by operating system itself

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are called Kernel Level Threads.
 In these types of threads, kernel performs thread

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creation, scheduling and management.
 Kernel threads are used for internal workings of
operating system.
 Kernel threads are slower to create and manage.
 The various operating systems that support kernel level
threads are: Windows 2000, XP, Solaris 2.

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 USER LEVEL THREADS
 The threads of user application process are called User

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Level Threads.
 They are implemented in the user space of main

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memory.
 User level library (functions to manipulate user threads)
is used for thread creation, scheduling and management
without any support from the kernel.
 User level threads are fast to create and manage.

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 HYBRID THREADS
 In hybrid approach, both kernel level threads and user

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level threads are implemented.
 For e.g.: Solaris 2.

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 MULTI-THREADING MODELS
 Depending on the support for user and kernel threads,

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there are three multithreading models:

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 Many-to-One Model

 One-to-One Model

 Many-to-Many Model

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 MANY-TO-ONE MODEL
 In this model, many user level threads are mapped to one

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kernel level thread.
 Threads are managed in user space.

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 ONE-TO-ONE MODEL
 In this model, each user level thread is mapped to one

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kernel level thread.

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 MANY-TO-MANY MODEL
 In this model, many user level threads are mapped to

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many kernel level threads.

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