Multi-Level Cache Memory Increases Processing Speed

Cache is a component that stores data which have been used earlier by the processor. It also stores data duplicated from somewhere else and serves the requested data quickly to the processor. Reading any kind of data from other memory locations is slower. So, cache memory increases computer’s performance by making access of required data faster.

Small cache memories operate faster compared to the primary and secondary memories. Modern microprocessors have nearly half-a-dozen cache memory to increase processor performance. Multi-core processors process data quickly with the help of multi-level cache memories. These caches can be shared or local to each core. An 8 core processor that has 3 levels of cache may contain an L1 cache for each core, an L3 cache shared by all cores and an L2 cache for each pair of cores. This makes data processing faster than ever.