-on ARM, etc.). At the moment, the IR does not provide any way to represent a
-weak ``cmpxchg`` which would not require a loop.
+on ARM, etc.).
+
+It is often easiest for backends to use AtomicExpandPass to lower some of the
+atomic constructs. Here are some lowerings it can do:
+
+* cmpxchg -> loop with load-linked/store-conditional
+ by overriding ``shouldExpandAtomicCmpXchgInIR()``, ``emitLoadLinked()``,
+ ``emitStoreConditional()``
+* large loads/stores -> ll-sc/cmpxchg
+ by overriding ``shouldExpandAtomicStoreInIR()``/``shouldExpandAtomicLoadInIR()``
+* strong atomic accesses -> monotonic accesses + fences
+ by using ``setInsertFencesForAtomic()`` and overriding ``emitLeadingFence()``
+ and ``emitTrailingFence()``
+* atomic rmw -> loop with cmpxchg or load-linked/store-conditional
+ by overriding ``expandAtomicRMWInIR()``
+
+For an example of all of these, look at the ARM backend.