The Memory Management Unit
Gregg Zehr · 2024
The memory management unit (MMU) is a hardware device that extends the CPU architecture to provide very low-level hardware support for advanced operating system software features, including virtual memory, multitasking, and data security. This article describes what an MMU is, and how it fits into the architecture of a computer system. We then discuss the characteristics of an MMU that are important to the operating system and give several examples of commercially available MMUs.