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A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization. It is also called a lightweight process. CPU threads share the code section, data section, and any operating system resources with its peer threads in a particular task which are vacant for the job.
In this article, you will be able to learn about a thread, different types of threads, their advantages and disadvantages, major differences between process and threads, etc. Let’s read it further.
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A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization. It is also called a lightweight process. It is a sequence of instructions within a process. A CPU thread behaves like a process within a process but it does not have its own PCB.
Usually, multiple threads are created within a process. The multiple CPU threads in a process allow multiple executions. It can be used to improve the application through parallelism. Threads consist of the following:
A thread shares the following with its peer threads in a particular task: Thread is a sequence of instructions within a process. It behaves like a process within a process but it does not have its own PCB. Types:Kernel-Level & User-Level
Some important benefits of threads are as follows:
The difference between processes and threads are as follows:
Thread | Process |
A thread is a lightweight entity | A process is a heavyweight entity |
A thread cannot exist without a process | There must be at least one thread in a process |
If a thread ends, the process may still run. | If a process ends, all threads in it also end |
A thread has no data segment or heap | A process has code, data, and heap segments |
The communication among threads occurs via memory | The communication among processes occurs via the operating system and data copying |
The creation of threads and context switching is inexpensive | The creation of processes and context switching is expensive. |
Threads may be handled at different levels. There are two types of CPU threads to manage in a modern system. One is called the user thread and 2nd is the kernel thread.
Kernel-level threads are supported within the kernel of the operating system. All modern operating systems support kernel-level threads. They allow the kernel to perform multiple tasks and to service multiple kernel system calls simultaneously.
Advantages
Different advantages of kernel-level threads are as follows:
Disadvantages
Different disadvantages of kernel-level CPU threads are as follows:
User-level threads are implemented in user-level libraries instead of systems calls. The thread switching does not need to call the operating system. It does not cause interruptions to the kernel.
The kernel knows nothing about user-level CPU threads. It manages these threads as single-threaded processes. The user-level threads are very fast.
Advantages
Different advantages of user-level threads are as follows:
Disadvantages
Different disadvantages of user-level threads are as follows:
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