The cells (bits) in a DRAM chip are partitioned into d supercells, each consisting of w DRAM cells. A d × w DRAM stores a total of dw bits of information.

Programs stored in ROM devices are often referred to as firmware.

What to do on a write-hit?

  • Write-through (write immediately to memory)
  • Write-back (defer write to memory until replacement of line)

What to do on a write-miss?

  • Write-allocate(load into cache, update line in cache)
  • No-Write-allocate(writes straight to memory, does not load into cache)