Ordering

In the context of single-threaded execution hardware provides so called sequential self-consistency, that is, for a program everything looks like all memory accesses are done in program order. In reality memory accesses can be made out of program order, however hardware masks that from a single-threaded program. For a multi-threaded program situation radically changes - threads can see each other's memory accesses in weird order. Memory access ordering is the most involved property of a memory model, and it requires the greatest amount of developer's attention.

So, a memory model determines what re-orderings are possible (relatively to program order). For required ordering ensuring hardware usually provides special instructions called memory fences/barriers, which prevent some re-ordering types around them. There are 2 types of memory fences - bi-directional (store-store, load-load) and tied to memory accesses (acquire and release). Bi-directional fences prevent one type of memory accesses (load or store) from "sinking below" them, while other type of memory accesses (can be the same, though) from "hoisting above" them. For example, store-load fence prevents stores from sinking below and loads from hoisting above (however, stores can hoist above it and loads may sink below it).

Fences tied to memory accesses prevent all memory accesses from moving above (acquire fence) or below (release fence); for example, load-acquire is a load which simultaneously prevents any other memory accesses from hoisting above it (while any memory accesses can sink below it).

Let me illustrate it with some pictures. So, below is an informal graphical representation of store-load bi-directional fence:

And here is informal graphical representation of load-acquire:

Move on to Applied Ordering