What memory cache stores recent translations of virtual addresses to physical addresses to speed up address translation?

What memory cache stores recent translations of virtual addresses to physical addresses to speed up address translation?

• A. Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)
• B. Cache
• C. Page Table
• D. RAM

Answer: (A)

Caching recent address translations speeds up memory access by keeping the most recently used virtual-to-physical mappings close to the CPU. This is exactly what the Translation Lookaside Buffer does. The memory management unit checks the TLB to translate a virtual address to a physical address quickly. If the translation is found in the TLB (a hit), the physical address is obtained fast, avoiding a full walk through the page table in memory. If it’s not found (a miss), the system reads the translation from the page table in main memory, updates the TLB with this new entry, and then completes the access. TLB entries typically store the virtual page number, the corresponding physical frame number, and protection bits, making translations much quicker than consulting the large page tables in memory. A generic cache isn’t specialized for address translations, and RAM is just the main memory used when translations aren’t cached. So the Translation Lookaside Buffer is the best fit.

Caching recent address translations speeds up memory access by keeping the most recently used virtual-to-physical mappings close to the CPU. This is exactly what the Translation Lookaside Buffer does. The memory management unit checks the TLB to translate a virtual address to a physical address quickly. If the translation is found in the TLB (a hit), the physical address is obtained fast, avoiding a full walk through the page table in memory. If it’s not found (a miss), the system reads the translation from the page table in main memory, updates the TLB with this new entry, and then completes the access. TLB entries typically store the virtual page number, the corresponding physical frame number, and protection bits, making translations much quicker than consulting the large page tables in memory. A generic cache isn’t specialized for address translations, and RAM is just the main memory used when translations aren’t cached. So the Translation Lookaside Buffer is the best fit.