IPCs

IPCs is an acronym that can refer to several concepts across computing, engineering, and patent law. The intended meaning depends on the field, and the same term is used in different contexts.

Inter-Process Communication (IPC) refers to mechanisms that allow processes or threads to communicate and coordinate their actions. Common IPC methods include pipes, message queues, shared memory, semaphores, and signals. Operating systems provide IPC facilities to enable data exchange and synchronization while managing access to resources. Design considerations include latency, throughput, portability, and risk of deadlocks and race conditions.

Instructions Per Cycle (IPC) is a performance metric for CPUs that measures the average number of instructions completed per clock cycle. IPC varies with workload, instruction mix, and microarchitectural features such as pipelining, caching, and branch prediction. It is related to, but not the same as, CPI (cycles per instruction); higher IPC generally indicates better efficiency under a given benchmark.

International Patent Classification (IPC) is a hierarchical system for classifying patent documents, established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It enables uniform search and examination by grouping inventions into sections and classes, with multiple levels of subclassification. The IPC is widely used by patent offices around the world and updated periodically to reflect new technologies. The eight main sections are A through H, covering topics from human necessities to electricity.