CHAPTER SUMMARY
Memory is organized as a hierarchy, with larger memories being cheaper but slower, and smaller memories being faster but more expensive. In a typical memory hierarchy, we find a cache, main memory, and secondary memory (usually a disk drive). The principle of locality helps bridge the gap between successive layers of this hierarchy, and the programmer gets the impression of a very fast and very large memory without being concerned about the details of transfers among the various levels of this hierarchy.
Cache acts as a buffer to hold the most frequently used blocks of main memory and is close to the CPU. One goal of the memory hierarchy is for the processor to see an effective access time very close to the access time of the ...
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