Do per cpu variables need to be atomic?

Hello, Let us say we have a per-cpu data structure as follows: struct data { atomic_t val; }; Since this is a per-cpu data structure, do I need to have 'val' as atomic? Or can I just use a normal 'int' for val? Also are the following the same? If yes, which is preferable? DEFINE_PER_CPU(struct data, datap); struct data __percpu *p = &datap; struct data *p = this_cpu_ptr(&datap); Thanks, -- Pranith