这个来自Java Doc的例子帮助我清楚地理解了这些概念:

class Driver { // ...
  void main() throws InterruptedException {
    CountDownLatch startSignal = new CountDownLatch(1);
    CountDownLatch doneSignal = new CountDownLatch(N);

    for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) // create and start threads
      new Thread(new Worker(startSignal, doneSignal)).start();

    doSomethingElse();            // don't let run yet
    startSignal.countDown();      // let all threads proceed
    doSomethingElse();
    doneSignal.await();           // wait for all to finish
  }
}

class Worker implements Runnable {
  private final CountDownLatch startSignal;
  private final CountDownLatch doneSignal;
  Worker(CountDownLatch startSignal, CountDownLatch doneSignal) {
     this.startSignal = startSignal;
     this.doneSignal = doneSignal;
  }
  public void run() {
     try {
       startSignal.await();
       doWork();
       doneSignal.countDown();
     } catch (InterruptedException ex) {} // return;
  }

  void doWork() { ... }
}

视觉解释:

显然，CountDownLatch允许一个线程(这里是Driver)等待一堆正在运行的线程(这里是Worker)完成它们的执行。

最好的选择是CyclicBarrier，如https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/CountDownLatch.html 看到的:

CountDownLatch使用给定的计数进行初始化。由于调用了countDown()方法，await方法阻塞直到当前计数为零，在此之后所有等待的线程都被释放，并且await的任何后续调用立即返回。这是一个一次性现象——计数不能重置。如果您需要一个重置计数的版本，请考虑使用CyclicBarrier。

NikolaB解释得很好，但是举例有助于理解，所以这里有一个简单的例子…

 import java.util.concurrent.*;


  public class CountDownLatchExample {

  public static class ProcessThread implements Runnable {

    CountDownLatch latch;
    long workDuration;
    String name;

    public ProcessThread(String name, CountDownLatch latch, long duration){
        this.name= name;
        this.latch = latch;
        this.workDuration = duration;
    }


    public void run() {
        try {
            System.out.println(name +" Processing Something for "+ workDuration/1000 + " Seconds");
            Thread.sleep(workDuration);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        System.out.println(name+ "completed its works");
        //when task finished.. count down the latch count...

        // basically this is same as calling lock object notify(), and object here is latch
        latch.countDown();
    }
}


public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Parent thread creating a latch object
    CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(3);

    new Thread(new ProcessThread("Worker1",latch, 2000)).start(); // time in millis.. 2 secs
    new Thread(new ProcessThread("Worker2",latch, 6000)).start();//6 secs
    new Thread(new ProcessThread("Worker3",latch, 4000)).start();//4 secs


    System.out.println("waiting for Children processes to complete....");
    try {
        //current thread will get notified if all chidren's are done 
        // and thread will resume from wait() mode.
        latch.await();
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    System.out.println("All Process Completed....");

    System.out.println("Parent Thread Resuming work....");



     }
  }

这个来自Java Doc的例子帮助我清楚地理解了这些概念:

class Driver { // ...
  void main() throws InterruptedException {
    CountDownLatch startSignal = new CountDownLatch(1);
    CountDownLatch doneSignal = new CountDownLatch(N);

    for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) // create and start threads
      new Thread(new Worker(startSignal, doneSignal)).start();

    doSomethingElse();            // don't let run yet
    startSignal.countDown();      // let all threads proceed
    doSomethingElse();
    doneSignal.await();           // wait for all to finish
  }
}

class Worker implements Runnable {
  private final CountDownLatch startSignal;
  private final CountDownLatch doneSignal;
  Worker(CountDownLatch startSignal, CountDownLatch doneSignal) {
     this.startSignal = startSignal;
     this.doneSignal = doneSignal;
  }
  public void run() {
     try {
       startSignal.await();
       doWork();
       doneSignal.countDown();
     } catch (InterruptedException ex) {} // return;
  }

  void doWork() { ... }
}

视觉解释:

显然，CountDownLatch允许一个线程(这里是Driver)等待一堆正在运行的线程(这里是Worker)完成它们的执行。

是的，你理解对了。 CountDownLatch的工作原理是闩锁，主线程将等待门被打开。一个线程等待n个线程，这是在创建CountDownLatch时指定的。

任何调用CountDownLatch.await()的线程(通常是应用程序的主线程)都将等待，直到count达到零或被另一个线程中断。所有其他线程都需要在完成或准备就绪后调用CountDownLatch.countDown()进行倒计时。

只要count达到0，等待线程就会继续。CountDownLatch的一个缺点/优点是它不可重用:一旦count达到0，就不能再使用CountDownLatch了。

编辑:

当一个线程(如主线程)需要等待一个或多个线程完成后才能继续处理时，使用CountDownLatch。

在Java中使用CountDownLatch的一个经典示例是一个服务器端核心Java应用程序，该应用程序使用服务体系结构，其中多个服务由多个线程提供，在所有服务成功启动之前应用程序不能开始处理。

注: OP的问题有一个非常简单的例子，所以我没有包括一个。

One good example of when to use something like this is with Java Simple Serial Connector, accessing serial ports. Typically you'll write something to the port, and asyncronously, on another thread, the device will respond on a SerialPortEventListener. Typically, you'll want to pause after writing to the port to wait for the response. Handling the thread locks for this scenario manually is extremely tricky, but using Countdownlatch is easy. Before you go thinking you can do it another way, be careful about race conditions you never thought of!!

伪代码:

CountDownLatch latch;
void writeData() { 
   latch = new CountDownLatch(1);
   serialPort.writeBytes(sb.toString().getBytes())
   try {
      latch.await(4, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
   }
}
class SerialPortReader implements SerialPortEventListener {
    public void serialEvent(SerialPortEvent event) {
        if(event.isRXCHAR()){//If data is available
            byte buffer[] = serialPort.readBytes(event.getEventValue());
            latch.countDown();
         }
     }
}