Imposing Minimal Memory Ordering on Multiprocessors

I owe my gratitude to all those people who have made this dissertation possible and because of whom my graduation experience has been one that I will cherish forever. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Rajiv Gupta, for leading me to today’s achievements. His perpetual enthusiasm in research, meticulous scholarship, extensive knowledge and insightful vision have influenced me immensely in the course of performing research. More importantly, he deeply cares about his students. I really appreciate his belief in my potential, which allows me to explore problems extensively. From him, I have learned innumerable lessons and insights on the working of academic research in general, which have helped me come a long way and will always guide me in future. Thanks, Dr. Gupta! I would like to thank my other dissertation committee members, Dr. Gianfranco Ciardo, Dr. Iulian Neamtiu and Dr. Philip Brisk for taking their time to help me improve this dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to all the members of my research group including Vijay Nagarajan, Dennis Jeffrey, Chen Tian, Min Feng, Kishore Kumar Pusukuri, Yan Wang, and Sai Charan Koduru for helping me in many ways during these years. I would also like to extend a general thank you to all teachers I have had throughout my life. I am where I am today because of them. Finally, I would like to thank my family, particularly my father Dianyi Lin, my mother Youfang Zhang, and my wife Ying He, for their unconditional support throughout my life and career. iv To my wife and parents, for their endless love and support. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATIO