Memory Management

Operating Systems
 Approaches to Memory Management

• Contiguous allocation

• Paging
 Contiguous Allocation
• Memory to each process is allocated
contiguously
• Each process gets one big block of memory

• Contiguous allocation is simple

• However, suffers from fragmentation
 Paging
• A process can be allocated chunks of memory
scattered across the RAM

• There is no fragmentation

• Paging is complex, and may need hardware

support
 Basic Functions of a Memory Manager

• Memory protection

• Address translation
 Memory Protection

• Operating system checks for illegal memory

access

• A process cannot access memory of any other

process
 Address Translation
• Operating system converts logical (relative)
addresses into physical (absolute) addresses

• Addresses in each memory-referencing

instruction (load, store, etc) need to be translated

• Hardware support is required for efficient

translation
 Logical Addresses
• When compiler translates a high-level
program into machine code, it cannot know
the exact location at run-time

• Compiler generates logical addresses

• Logical addressing is a simple numbering of

each byte of a program
 Example
• char c; // address 0
• char d; // address 1
• char e; // address 2
• ... // ...
 Physical Addresses
• Physical addresses are actual addresses in
RAM

• Physical addresses can be different for each

run

• Depend upon location of the available

memory
Example – Physical Addresses
Variable Address Address
c 10 55
d 11 56
e 12 57
 Contiguous Allocation
• How address is translated in contiguous
allocation?

• How memory is protected?

Address Translation in Contiguous Allocation

• A base address is added to each logical

address
• Base address is the starting address of the
location

Physical address = Logical address + Starting address

Memory Protection in Contiguous Allocation

• The system checks whether a given address is

within limit

• This check needs to be performed for every

memory-referencing instruction

• Hardware support is required for efficiency

 Memory Management Unit
• MMU is a piece of hardware that helps in
– Address translation
– Memory protection
• It has two registers
– Base register (relocation register)
– Limit register
• Operating systems sets these registers during
a context switch
Base and Limit Registers

Source: Operating Systems by Silberschatz et al

 Memory Management Unit ...
• During execution of each memory-referencing
instruction
– MMU checks address for limit
– MMU performs address translation
Memory Management Unit ...

Source: Operating Systems by Silberschatz et al

How MMU Protects Memory

Source: Operating Systems by Silberschatz et al

 Summary
• Contiguous allocation

• Address translation

• Memory protection

• Memory management unit

 Upcoming next ...
• Paging
– Introduction
– Memory protection
– Address translation
– TLB
The End