MEMORY

The second major component in any computer is the memory. Ideally, a memory should be extremely fast (faster than executing an instruction so the CPU is not held up by the memory), abundantly large, and dirt cheap. No current technology satisfies all of these goals, so a different approach is taken. The memory system is constructed as a hierarchy of layers.

The top layer consists of the registers internal to the CPU. They are made of the same material as the CPU and are thus just as fast as the CPU. Consequently, there is no delay in accessing them. The storage capacity available in them is typically 32 x 32-bits on a 32-bit CPU and 64 x 64-bits on a 64-bit CPU. Less than 1 KB in both cases. Programs must manage the registers themselves, in software.

Next comes the cache memory, which is mostly controlled by the hardware. Main memory is divided up into cache lines, typically 64 bytes, with addresses 0 to 63 in cache fine 0, addresses 64 to 127 in cache line 1, and so on. The most heavily used cache lines are kept in a high-speed cache located inside or very close to the CPU. When the program needs to read a memory word, the cache hardware checks to see if the line needed is in the cache. If it is, called a cache hit, the request is satisfied from the cache and no memory request is sent over the bus to the main memory. Cache hits normally take about two clock cycles. Cache misses have to go to memory, with a substantial time penalty. Cache memory is limited in size due to its high cost. Some machines have two or even three levels of cache, each one slower and bigger than the one before it.

Main memory comes next. This is the workhorse of the memory system. Main memory is often called RAM (Random Access Memory). Old timers sometimes call it core memory, because computers in the 1950s and 1960s used tiny magnetizable ferrite cores for main memory. Currently, memories are tens to hundreds of megabytes and growing rapidly. All CPU requests that cannot be satisfied out of the cache go to main memory.

Next in the hierarchy is magnetic disk (hard disk). Disk storage is two orders of magnitude cheaper than RAM per bit and often two orders of magnitude larger as well. The only problem is that the time to randomly access data on it is close to three orders of magnitude slower. This low speed is due to the fact that a disk is a mechanical device, as shown in Fig. 1-8.

A disk consists of one or more metal platters that rotate at 5400, 7200, or 10,800 rpm. A mechanical arm pivots over the platters from the corner, similar to the pickup arm on an old 33 rpm phonograph for playing vinyl records. Information is written onto the disk in a series of concentric circles. At any given arm position, each of the heads can read an annular region called a track. Together, all the tracks for a given arm position form a cylinder.

Each track is divided into some number of sectors, typically 512 bytes per sector. On modern disks, the outer cylinders contain more sectors than the inner ones. Moving the arm from one cylinder to the next one takes about 1 msec. Moving it to a random cylinder typically takes 5 msec to 10 msec, depending on the drive. Once the arm is on the correct track, the drive must wait for the needed sector to rotate under the head, an additional delay of 5 msec to 10 msec, depending on the drive’s rpm. Once the sector is under the head, reading or writing occurs at a rate of 5 MB/sec on low-end disks to 160 MB/sec on faster ones.

reference from :-

Modern_Operating_Systems_2ndEd_by_Tanenbaum_Prentice_Hall