Main Memory

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 is done in one CPU clock (or less)
 Cache sits between main memory and CPU registers
 Protection of memory required to ensure correct operation
 Protection
 Need to ensure that a process can access only those addresses in
its address space.
 We can provide this protection by using a pair of base and limit
registers define the logical address space of a process
 Hardware Address Protection
 CPU must check every memory access generated in user mode to
be sure it is between base and limit for that user

 the instructions to loading the base and limit registers are privileged
 Address Binding
 Programs on disk, ready to be brought into memory to execute form
an input queue

 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
 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 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 (MMU)
 Hardware device that at run time maps virtual to physical address

 Many methods possible, covered in the rest of this chapter

 Memory-Management Unit (Cont.)
 Consider simple scheme. which is a generalization of the base-
register scheme.
 The base register now called relocation register
 The value in the relocation register is added to every address
generated by a user process at the time it is sent to memory
 Dynamic Loading
 The entire program does need to be in memory to execute
 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
1. Static linking – system libraries and program code combined by the
loader into the binary program image
2. 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
 Contiguous Allocation
 Main memory must support both OS and user processes
 Limited resource, must allocate efficiently
 Contiguous allocation is one early method
 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
 Variable Partition
 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 (half) N
blocks lost to fragmentation
 Fragmentation (Cont.)
 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
 Now consider that backing store has same fragmentation problems
 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
 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
 Still have Internal fragmentation
Paging Model of Logical and Physical Memory
 Free Frames

Before allocation After allocation

 Shared Pages
 Shared code
• One copy of read-only 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
 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 (Cont.)
 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