In cache memory design, what cache write policy immediately updates both the cache and the underlying main memory simultaneously whenever a processor write occurs?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. Write-through
- Step 1: Maintaining data consistency between CPU cache and system RAM requires a defined write strategy.
- Step 2: A write-through cache immediately commits every write transaction to both the cache and main RAM simultaneously, ensuring main memory is always 100% up-to-date at the cost of higher bus write traffic.
Answer
Write-through
Why not the others: 'Write-back' Write-back updates only the cache initially and marks the line with a dirty bit, deferring the main memory update until the line is evicted; 'Write-around' Write-around writes new data directly to main RAM without loading the block into cache, reducing cache pollution for rarely reused writes; 'Write-invalidate' Write-invalidate is a bus snooping cache coherence protocol that invalidates copies in other cores, not a memory write policy.
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