second level cache (L2)
The Level 2 cache (L2) is an external processor memory that is housed on a separate chip.
However, the trend is increasingly to integrate the second level cache, just like the level 1 cache, into the microprocessor architecture, which has led to the renaming of the external cache as level 3 c ache.
L2 caches cache the data from main memories and thus make it available to the processor more quickly. They can be operated at full or half clock frequency. Level 2 caches have storage capacities of a few megabytes( MB). Some central processing units( CPU), such as Intel's Core 2 Quad, have a Level 2 cache with a memory capacity of over 10 MB.