What is TLB

TLB stands for `Translation Lookaside Buffer".

A translation lookaside buffer (TLB) is a memory cache that stores the recent translations of virtual memory to physical memory.

It is used to reduce the time taken to access a user memory location.

What is virtual memory and physical memory

Physical memory is the hardware that stores the data in a computer system.

• Each byte of physical memory has a unique physical memory address.

Virtual memory is a technique that extends the amount of usable memory in a computer system.

• Represents a reserved space in devices like SSD
• Each process has its own virtual address space

Virtual memory addresses are translated to Physical memory addresses using the Memory Management Unit (MMU).

Process Flow

When a program is run, it's loaded from storage into physical memory.

If physical memory is full, virtual memory is used to temporarily move data to disk storage.

The MMU translates virtual addresses to physical addresses so the program can access the data.