Caches (on-chip, off-chip)
Caches consist of a set of entries where each entry has:
- a block (or line) of data: information contents image of some memory contents
- tag: allows to recognize if the block is there (depends on the mapping)
- status bits: valid, dirty,status for multiprocessors etc.
Capacity (or size) of a cache
number of blocks * block size
i.e., the tag array is not counted in the KB capacity