James's Blog

UNIX: context switch

Each process has its own virtual memory space. References to real memory are provided through a process-specific set of address translation maps. The computer's Memory Management Unit (MMU) contains a set of registers that point to the current process's address translation maps. When the current process changes, the MMU must load the translation maps for the new process. This is called a "Context Switch"

posted by James Pei @ 4:27 PM