Computer Organization: CPU Cache and the Memory Hierarchy

1. Why do our computers have so many different types of memories?
2. What is a cache?
3. Why is a cache needed?
4. What data should be kept in a cache?
5. What are temporal and spatial locality?
6. How do caches exploit temporal locality?
7. How do caches exploit spatial locality?
8. What is the classic LRU cache replacement policy?
9. What are cache blocks? Why use them?
10. What is associativity in caches?
11. What is a fully associative cache?
12. What is a direct mapped cache?
13. What is a set associative cache?
14. How to determine whether a particular memory address will hit or miss in the cache?
15. How the address breakdown works for accessing data stored in fully associative, direct mapped, and set-associative caches?
16. How to modify data in caches?
17. What is a write-through cache?
18. What is a write-back cache?
19. How dirty bits are used in a write-back cache?
20. What other cache eviction algorithms, besides LRU, can be used?
21. How are caches organized in a hierarchy in modern computers?