14. Page Faults
This chapter examines the intricacies of page faults and the functioning of memory hierarchies in computer architecture. It explores the mechanisms behind page fault handling, including the processes involved in mapping virtual addresses to physical memory. Additionally, it discusses the roles of translation lookaside buffers (TLBs) and cache systems in enhancing memory access speeds while managing physical and virtual memory interactions.
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What we have learnt
- Page faults occur when the required data is not found in memory, prompting the OS to manage memory retrieval from secondary storage.
- TLBs play a crucial role in improving the speed of memory accesses by caching page table entries, thereby reducing access times.
- The architecture incorporates multiple levels of cache and memory, each capable of experiencing hits or misses during data retrieval.
Key Concepts
- -- Page Fault
- An event that occurs when a program attempts to access a page that is not currently mapped to the physical memory, requiring the operating system to retrieve it from secondary storage.
- -- Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)
- A hardware cache that stores recent translations of virtual memory addresses to physical addresses to speed up memory access.
- -- Cache
- A high-speed storage layer that stores copies of frequently accessed data to reduce latency associated with main memory access.
- -- Memory Hierarchy
- The structured arrangement of various levels of memory (registers, cache, main memory) that optimizes the performance of data access in a computer system.
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