THE MEMORY SYSTEM

Today, computer-system optimization, at both the hardware and software levels, must consider the details of the memory system in its analysis, failing to do so yields systems that are increasingly inefficient as those systems become more complex. This lecture seeks to introduce the reader to the most important details of the memory system, it targets both computer scientists and computer engineers in industry and in academia. Roughly speaking, computer scientists are the users of the memory system and computer engineers are the designers of the memory system. Both can benefit tremendously from a basic understanding of how the memory system really works