Memory Management Strategies

Chapter -8
 Chapter 8: Memory Management
• Background
• Swapping
• Contiguous Memory Allocation
• Segmentation
• Paging
• Structure of the Page Table
 Objectives
• To provide a detailed description of various
ways of organizing memory hardware
• To discuss various memory-management
techniques, including paging and
segmentation
• To provide a detailed description of the Intel
Pentium, which supports both pure
segmentation and segmentation with paging
 Background
• Program must be brought (from disk) into memory
and placed within a process for it to be run
• Main memory and registers are only storage CPU
can access directly
• Memory unit only sees a stream of addresses +
read requests, or address + data and write requests
• Register access in one CPU clock (or less)
• Main memory can take many cycles, causing a stall
• Cache sits between main memory and CPU
registers
• Protection of memory required to ensure correct
operation
 Base and Limit Registers
• A pair of base and limit registers define the logical
address space
• CPU must check every memory access generated in
user mode to be sure it is between base and limit for
that user
Hardware Address Protection
 Address Binding
• Programs on disk, ready to be brought into memory to execute form an input
queue
– Without support, must be loaded into address 0000
• Inconvenient to have first user process physical address always at 0000
– How can it not be?
• Further, addresses represented in different ways at different stages of a program’s
life
– Source code addresses usually symbolic
– Compiled code addresses bind to relocatable addresses
• i.e. “14 bytes from beginning of this module”
– Linker or loader will bind relocatable addresses to absolute addresses
• i.e. 74014
– Each binding maps one address space to another
 Binding of Instructions and Data to Memory

• Address binding of instructions and data to memory

addresses can happen at three different stages
– Compile time: If memory location known a priori, absolute
code can be generated; must recompile code if starting
location changes
– Load time: Must generate relocatable code if memory
location is not known at compile time
– Execution time: Binding delayed until run time if the
process can be moved during its execution from one
memory segment to another
• Need hardware support for address maps (e.g., base and limit
registers)
Multistep Processing of a User Program
 Logical vs. Physical Address Space
• The concept of a logical address space that is bound to a
separate physical address space is central to proper memory
management
– Logical address – generated by the CPU; also referred to as
virtual address
– Physical address – address seen by the memory unit
• Logical and physical addresses are the same in compile-time
and load-time address-binding schemes; logical (virtual) and
physical addresses differ in execution-time address-binding
scheme
• Logical address space is the set of all logical addresses
generated by a program
• Physical address space is the set of all physical addresses
generated by a program.
 Memory-Management Unit
• Hardware device that at run time maps virtual to physical
address
• Many methods possible, covered in the rest of this chapter
• To start, consider simple scheme where the value in the
relocation register is added to every address generated by a
user process at the time it is sent to memory
– Base register now called relocation register
– MS-DOS on Intel 80x86 used 4 relocation registers
• The user program deals with logical addresses; it never sees
the real physical addresses
– Execution-time binding occurs when reference is made to
location in memory
– Logical address bound to physical addresses
 Dynamic relocation using a relocation register

Routine is not loaded until it is

called
Better memory-space utilization;
unused routine is never loaded
All routines kept on disk in
relocatable load format
Useful when large amounts of
code are needed to handle
infrequently occurring cases
No special support from the
operating system is required
Implemented through program
design
OS can help by providing libraries
to implement dynamic loading
 Dynamic Linking
• Static linking – system libraries and program code
combined by the loader into the binary program image
• Dynamic linking –linking postponed until execution time
• Small piece of code, stub, used to locate the appropriate
memory-resident library routine
• Stub replaces itself with the address of the routine, and
executes the routine
• Operating system checks if routine is in processes ’
memory address
– If not in address space, add to address space
• Dynamic linking is particularly useful for libraries
• System also known as shared libraries
• Consider applicability to patching system libraries
– Versioning may be needed
 Swapping
• A process can be swapped temporarily out of memory to a
backing store, and then brought back into memory for
continued execution
– Total physical memory space of processes can exceed physical
memory
• Backing store – fast disk large enough to accommodate copies
of all memory images for all users; must provide direct access
to these memory images
• Roll out, roll in – swapping variant used for priority-based
scheduling algorithms; lower-priority process is swapped out
so higher-priority process can be loaded and executed
• Major part of swap time is transfer time; total transfer time is
directly proportional to the amount of memory swapped
• System maintains a ready queue of ready-to-run processes
which have memory images on disk
 Swapping
• Does the swapped out process need to swap back in to
same physical addresses?
• Depends on address binding method
– Plus consider pending I/O to / from process memory space
• Modified versions of swapping are found on many
systems (i.e., UNIX, Linux, and Windows)
– Swapping normally disabled
– Started if more than threshold amount of memory allocated
– Disabled again once memory demand reduced below threshold
Schematic View of Swapping
 Context Switch Time including Swapping

• If next processes to be put on CPU is not in memory,

need to swap out a process and swap in target process
• Context switch time can then be very high
• 100MB process swapping to hard disk with transfer rate
of 50MB/sec
– Swap out time of 2000 ms
– Plus swap in of same sized process
– Total context switch swapping component time of 4000ms
(4 seconds)
• Can reduce if reduce size of memory swapped – by
knowing how much memory really being used
– System calls to inform OS of memory use via
request_memory() and release_memory()
 Context Switch Time and Swapping (Cont.)

• Other constraints as well on swapping

– Pending I/O – can’t swap out as I/O would
occur to wrong process
– Or always transfer I/O to kernel space, then
to I/O device
• Known as double buffering, adds overhead
• Standard swapping not used in modern
operating systems
– But modified version common
• Swap only when free memory extremely low
 Swapping on Mobile Systems
• Not typically supported
– Flash memory based
• Small amount of space
• Limited number of write cycles
• Poor throughput between flash memory and CPU on mobile
platform
• Instead use other methods to free memory if low
– iOS asks apps to voluntarily relinquish allocated
memory
• Read-only data thrown out and reloaded from flash if needed
• Failure to free can result in termination
– Android terminates apps if low free memory, but first
writes application state to flash for fast restart
– Both OSes support paging as discussed below
 Contiguous Allocation
• Main memory must support both OS and
user processes
• Limited resource, must allocate efficiently
• Contiguous allocation is one early method
• Main memory usually into two partitions:
– Resident operating system, usually held in low
memory with interrupt vector
– User processes then held in high memory
– Each process contained in single contiguous
section of memory
 Contiguous Allocation
• Relocation registers used to protect user
processes from each other, and from
changing operating-system code and data
– Base register contains value of smallest
physical address
– Limit register contains range of logical
addresses – each logical address must be less
than the limit register
– MMU maps logical address dynamically
– Can then allow actions such as kernel code
being transient and kernel changing size
Hardware Support for Relocation and Limit Registers
 Multiple-partition allocation
• Multiple-partition allocation
– Degree of multiprogramming limited by number of partitions
– Variable-partition sizes for efficiency (sized to a given process’ needs)
– Hole – block of available memory; holes of various size are scattered throughout
memory
– When a process arrives, it is allocated memory from a hole large enough to
accommodate it
– Process exiting frees its partition, adjacent free partitions combined
– Operating system maintains information about:

a) allocated partitions b) free partitions (hole)

 Dynamic Storage-Allocation Problem
How to satisfy a request of size n from a list of free holes?

• First-fit: Allocate the first hole that is big enough

• Best-fit: Allocate the smallest hole that is big

enough; must search entire list, unless ordered by
size
– Produces the smallest leftover hole

• Worst-fit: Allocate the largest hole; must also

search entire list
– Produces the largest leftover hole

First-fit and best-fit better than worst-fit in terms of speed and storage
utilization
 Fragmentation
• External Fragmentation – total memory space
exists to satisfy a request, but it is not
contiguous
• Internal Fragmentation – allocated memory
may be slightly larger than requested memory;
this size difference is memory internal to a
partition, but not being used
• First fit analysis reveals that given N blocks
allocated, 0.5 N blocks lost to fragmentation
– 1/3 may be unusable -> 50-percent rule
 Fragmentation
• Reduce external fragmentation by
compaction
– Shuffle memory contents to place all free
memory together in one large block
– Compaction is possible only if relocation is
dynamic, and is done at execution time
– I/O problem
• Latch job in memory while it is involved in I/O
• Do I/O only into OS buffers
• Now consider that backing store has same
fragmentation problems
 Segmentation
• Memory-management scheme that supports user view of memory
• A program is a collection of segments
– A segment is a logical unit such as:
main program
procedure
function
method
object
local variables, global variables
common block
stack
symbol table
arrays
User’s View of a Program
Logical View of Segmentation
1

4
1

3 2
4

user space physical memory space

 Segmentation Architecture
• Logical address consists of a two tuple:
<segment-number, offset>,
• Segment table – maps two-dimensional
physical addresses; each table entry has:
– base – contains the starting physical address
where the segments reside in memory
– limit – specifies the length of the segment
• Segment-table base register (STBR) points to
the segment table’s location in memory
• Segment-table length register (STLR) indicates
number of segments used by a program;
segment number s is legal if s < STLR
 Segmentation Architecture
• Protection
– With each entry in segment table associate:
• validation bit = 0  illegal segment
• read/write/execute privileges
• Protection bits associated with segments;
code sharing occurs at segment level
• Since segments vary in length, memory
allocation is a dynamic storage-allocation
problem
• A segmentation example is shown in the
following diagram
Segmentation Hardware
 Paging
• Physical address space of a process can be noncontiguous;
process is allocated physical memory whenever the latter is
available
– Avoids external fragmentation
– Avoids problem of varying sized memory chunks
• Divide physical memory into fixed-sized blocks called frames
– Size is power of 2, between 512 bytes and 16 Mbytes
• Divide logical memory into blocks of same size called pages
• Keep track of all free frames
• To run a program of size N pages, need to find N free frames and
load program
• Set up a page table to translate logical to physical addresses
• Backing store likewise split into pages
• Still have Internal fragmentation
 Address Translation Scheme
• Address generated by CPU is divided into:
– Page number (p) – used as an index into a page
table which contains base address of each page in
physical memory
– Page offset (d) – combined with base address to
define the physical memory address that is sent to
the memory unit
page number page offset
p d
m -n n

– For given logical address space 2m and page size 2n

Paging Hardware
Paging Model of Logical and Physical Memory
 Paging Example

n=2 and m=4 32-byte memory and 4-byte pages

 Paging (Cont.)
• Calculating internal fragmentation
– Page size = 2,048 bytes
– Process size = 72,766 bytes
– 35 pages + 1,086 bytes
– Internal fragmentation of 2,048 - 1,086 = 962 bytes
– Worst case fragmentation = 1 frame – 1 byte
– On average fragmentation = 1 / 2 frame size
– So small frame sizes desirable?
– But each page table entry takes memory to track
– Page sizes growing over time
• Solaris supports two page sizes – 8 KB and 4 MB
• Process view and physical memory now very different
• By implementation process can only access its own memory
 Free Frames

Before allocation After allocation

 Implementation of Page Table
• Page table is kept in main memory
• Page-table base register (PTBR) points to the
page table
• Page-table length register (PTLR) indicates size
of the page table
• In this scheme every data/instruction access
requires two memory accesses
– One for the page table and one for the data /
instruction
• The two memory access problem can be solved
by the use of a special fast-lookup hardware
cache called associative memory or translation
look-aside buffers (TLBs)
 Implementation of Page Table
• Some TLBs store address-space identifiers
(ASIDs) in each TLB entry – uniquely identifies
each process to provide address-space
protection for that process
– Otherwise need to flush at every context switch
• TLBs typically small (64 to 1,024 entries)
• On a TLB miss, value is loaded into the TLB for
faster access next time
– Replacement policies must be considered
– Some entries can be wired down for permanent
fast access
 Associative Memory
• Associative memory – parallel search
Page # Frame #

• Address translation (p, d)

– If p is in associative register, get frame # out
– Otherwise get frame # from page table in
memory
Paging Hardware With TLB
 Effective Access Time
• Associative Lookup =  time unit
– Can be < 10% of memory access time
• Hit ratio = 
– Hit ratio – percentage of times that a page number is found in the
associative registers; ratio related to number of associative
registers
• Consider  = 80%,  = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory
access
• Effective Access Time (EAT)
EAT = (1 + )  + (2 + )(1 – )
=2+–
• Consider  = 80%,  = 20ns for TLB search, 100ns for memory
access
– EAT = 0.80 x 100 + 0.20 x 200 = 120ns
• Consider more realistic hit ratio ->  = 99%,  = 20ns for TLB
search, 100ns for memory access
– EAT = 0.99 x 100 + 0.01 x 200 = 101ns
 Memory Protection
• Memory protection implemented by associating
protection bit with each frame to indicate if read-only or
read-write access is allowed
– Can also add more bits to indicate page execute-only, and
so on
• Valid-invalid bit attached to each entry in the page
table:
– “ valid ” indicates that the associated page is in the
process’ logical address space, and is thus a legal page
– “invalid” indicates that the page is not in the process’
logical address space
– Or use page-table length register (PTLR)
• Any violations result in a trap to the kernel
Valid (v) or Invalid (i) Bit In A Page Table
 Shared Pages
• Shared code
– One copy of read-only (reentrant) code shared
among processes (i.e., text editors, compilers,
window systems)
– Similar to multiple threads sharing the same
process space
– Also useful for interprocess communication if
sharing of read-write pages is allowed
• Private code and data
– Each process keeps a separate copy of the code
and data
– The pages for the private code and data can
appear anywhere in the logical address space
Shared Pages Example
 Structure of the Page Table
• Memory structures for paging can get huge using
straight-forward methods
– Consider a 32-bit logical address space as on modern
computers
– Page size of 4 KB (212)
– Page table would have 1 million entries (232 / 212)
– If each entry is 4 bytes -> 4 MB of physical address
space / memory for page table alone
• That amount of memory used to cost a lot
• Don’t want to allocate that contiguously in main memory
• Hierarchical Paging
• Hashed Page Tables
• Inverted Page Tables
 Hierarchical Page Tables
• Break up the logical address
space into multiple page tables
• A simple technique is a two-level
page table
• We then page the page table
Two-Level Page-Table Scheme
 Two-Level Paging Example
• A logical address (on 32-bit machine with 1K page size) is
divided into:
– a page number consisting of 22 bits
– a page offset consisting of 10 bits
• Since the page table is paged, the page number is further
divided into:
– a 12-bit page number
– a 10-bit page offset
• Thus, a logical address is as follows:

• where p1 is an index into the outer page table, and p2 is

the displacement within the page of the inner page table
• Known as forward-mapped page table
Address-Translation Scheme
 64-bit Logical Address Space
• Even two-level paging scheme not sufficient
• If page size is 4 KB (212)
– Then page table has 252 entries
– If two level scheme, inner page tables could be 210 4-byte
entries
– Address would look like

– Outer page table has 242 entries or 244 bytes

– One solution is to add a 2nd outer page table
– But in the following example the 2nd outer page table is still 234
bytes in size
• And possibly 4 memory access to get to one physical memory
location
Three-level Paging Scheme
 Hashed Page Tables
• Common in address spaces > 32 bits
• The virtual page number is hashed into a page table
– This page table contains a chain of elements hashing to the same
location
• Each element contains (1) the virtual page number (2) the
value of the mapped page frame (3) a pointer to the next
element
• Virtual page numbers are compared in this chain searching for
a match
– If a match is found, the corresponding physical frame is
extracted
• Variation for 64-bit addresses is clustered page tables
– Similar to hashed but each entry refers to several pages (such as
16) rather than 1
– Especially useful for sparse address spaces (where memory
references are non-contiguous and scattered)
Hashed Page Table
 Inverted Page Table
• Rather than each process having a page table and keeping
track of all possible logical pages, track all physical pages
• One entry for each real page of memory
• Entry consists of the virtual address of the page stored in that
real memory location, with information about the process that
owns that page
• Decreases memory needed to store each page table, but
increases time needed to search the table when a page
reference occurs
• Use hash table to limit the search to one — or at most a few —
page-table entries
– TLB can accelerate access
• But how to implement shared memory?
– One mapping of a virtual address to the shared physical address
Inverted Page Table Architecture