GATE CS 2026 Set 2 Q46 — Memory Hierarchy: Cache, Main Memory and Secondary Storage

The size of the physical address space of a processor is $2^{32}$ bytes. The capacity of a cache memory unit is $2^{23}$ bytes. The cache block size is $128$ bytes. The cache memory unit can be built as a direct mapped cache or as a $K$-way set-associative cache, where $K=2^{L}$ and $L \in\{1,2,3\}$. Let the length of the TAG field be $M$ bits …

Consider a system that has a cache memory unit and a memory management unit (MMU). The address input to the cache memory is a physical address. The MMU has a translation lookaside buffer (TLB). Assume that when a page is evicted from the main memory, the corresponding blocks in the cache are marked as invalid. For a given memory reference, which of the …

Consider a hard disk with a rotational speed of $15000$ rpm. The time to move the read/write head from a track to its adjacent track is $1$ millisecond. Initially, the head is on track $0$. The number of sectors per track is $400$. The sector size is $1024$ bytes. It is necessary to transfer data from $10$ randomly located sectors in each of the …

Consider a system with a processor and a $4$ KB direct mapped cache with block size of $16$ bytes. The system has a $16$ MB physical memory. Four words $\mathrm{P}, \mathrm{Q}, \mathrm{R}$, and S are accessed by the processor in the same order $10$ times. That is, there are a total of $40$ memory references in the sequence …

To keep track of free blocks in a file system, one of the two approaches is generally used - using bitmaps (bit vectors) or using linked lists. Consider that the linked list approach is used to keep track of free blocks in a file system. Assume that the disk size is $16$ GB , block size is $2$ KB , and block numbers used are $32$-bit long. A single …

Consider a memory system with $1 \mathrm{M}$ bytes of main memory and $16 \mathrm{~K}$ bytes of cache memory. Assume that the processor generates $20$-bit memory address, and the cache block size is $16$ bytes. If the cache uses direct mapping, how many bits will be required to store all the $\operatorname{tag}$ values? [Assume memory is byte …