Question 9726 – Cache

In a C program, an array is declared as float A[2048]. Each array element is 4 Bytes in size, and the starting address of the array is 0×00000000. This program is run on a computer that has a direct mapped data cache of size 8 Kbytes, with block (line) size of 16 Bytes.

(a) Which elements of the array conflict with element A[0] in the data cache? Justify your answer briefly.

(b) If the program accesses the elements of this array one by one in reverse order i.e., starting with the last element and ending with the first element, how many data cache misses would occur? Justify your answer briefly. Assume that the data cache is initially empty and that no other data or instruction accesses are to be considered.

Correct Answer: A