Overview
Atomic operations are the building blocks of lock-free data structures and synchronization primitives (like mutexes). They ensure that if multiple threads try to modify the same memory location, the operations happen one at a time and don't result in corrupted data.
Hardware Support
CPUs provide special instructions for atomic operations, such as 'Atomic Add' or 'Compare-and-Swap.' These instructions often involve locking the memory bus or using cache coherency protocols to ensure exclusivity.
Importance
Essential for writing correct and efficient multi-threaded software.