ITWissen.info - Tech know how online

memory management unit (MMU)

A memory management unit (MMU) is a coprocessor that handles the memory management of main memories. The Memory Management Unit (MMU) works on the principle of paging and can map virtual addresses to physical addresses.

The Memory Management Unit divides the memory area into areas of fixed size and can allocate a memory area to processes and monitor it. To prevent them from moving from the allocated area to other areas, the Memory Management Unit triggers a protection mechanism.

In 32-bit processors, the memory manager is integrated on the CPU chip by default. In older microprocessors such as the 68000 or the 80286, the memory manager was located on a separate chip. In contrast to the Memory Management Unit (MMU), the Memory Protection Unit( MPU) enables a finer division of the memory area, and the MPU can also define memory areas with different memory sizes.

Informations:
Englisch: memory management unit - MMU
Updated at: 27.10.2010
#Words: 142
Links: memory, unit (U), coprocessor (CP), paging, virtual
Translations: DE
Sharing:    

All rights reserved DATACOM Buchverlag GmbH © 2024