Contents
What is memory bus width?
Bus width refers to the number of bits that can be sent to the CPU simultaneously, and bus speed refers to the number of times a group of bits can be sent each second. A bus cycle occurs every time data travels from memory to the CPU. Latency refers to the number of clock cycles needed to read a bit of information.
Where are memory addresses stored?
When writing to memory, the CPU writes data from MDR to the memory location whose address is stored in MAR. MAR, which is found inside the CPU, goes either to the RAM (random-access memory) or cache.
What are the different options or sizes for memory?
The most common RAM size you can find in everyday laptop PCs nowadays is 8GB. Some lower-end models come with 4GB and in some cases only 2GB. Higher-end mainstream laptop models oftentimes feature 12GB and 16GB. You can find high-performance gaming laptops and mobile workstations with 24 or even 32 Gigabytes, too.
How to calculate memory size based on address?
Is that correct? Step 1: calculate the length of the address in bits (n bits) Step 2: calculate the number of memory locations 2^n (bits) Step 3: take the number of memory locations and multiply it by the Byte size of the memory cells.
What should be included in the size of memory?
If its the available storage space, this should include the size of each addressable portion of memory e.g. each address location holds an unknown sized chunk of data.
How many address lines does a memory need?
To address a memory with n locations requires ceil (log2 (n)) address lines. For 1024 locations that means 10 address bits. For 16K locations that means 14 address bits. Most practical systems using 16 or 32 bit wide memories allow addressing bytes within a word individually.
How big is the address range of a computer?
Often the processor will have an addressing range that exceeds the amount of memory the computer is designed to take. Most processors have at least a 64k address range, so a computer with only 1k or 16k of memory is probably limited by other factors.