Cache hierarchy

rdf:langString Cache hierarchy

rdf:langString hit rate * hit time + miss rate * miss penalty? The difference between hit time and miss penalty may be large enough for an L1 cache that this is insignificant, but by the time you get to L4 this becomes a larger factor.

rdf:langString July 2018

rdf:langString Cache hierarchy, or multi-level caches, refers to a memory architecture that uses a hierarchy of memory stores based on varying access speeds to cache data. Highly requested data is cached in high-speed access memory stores, allowing swifter access by central processing unit (CPU) cores. Cache hierarchy is a form and part of memory hierarchy and can be considered a form of tiered storage. This design was intended to allow CPU cores to process faster despite the memory latency of main memory access. Accessing main memory can act as a bottleneck for CPU core performance as the CPU waits for data, while making all of main memory high-speed may be prohibitively expensive. High-speed caches are a compromise allowing high-speed access to the data most-used by the CPU, permitting a faster CPU clock.