Re: "Colo[u]rs"

[David Lang]

On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 11:21:23PM -0800, David Lang wrote:
> > Larry, I thought that direct mapped caches had full mapping from any cache
> > address to any physical address while the N-way mapped caches were more
> > limited. modern caches are N-way instead of direct mapped becouse it's
> > much more expensive (transistor count wise) for the direct mapped
> > approach.
>
> That's not correct unless they changed terminology without asking my
> permission :-)  A direct mapped cache is the same as a 1-way set
> associative cache.  It means each cache line has one and only one
> place it can be in the cache.  It also means there is only one set
> of tag comparitors, which makes it cheaper and easier to build.
>
> > If I'm mistaken about my termonology (very possible :-) what is the term
> > for what I am refering to as direct mapped?
>
> Fully associative cache, I believe.

Yep, that's it. thanks for the correction.

David Lang