Concurrent support of multiple page sizes on a skewed associative TLB

Some architecture definitions (e.g., Alpha) allow the use of multiple virtual page sizes even for a single process. Unfortunately, on current set-associative TLBs (translation lookaside buffers), pages with different sizes cannot coexist together. Thus, processors supporting multiple page sizes implement fully associative TLBs. In this research note, we show how the skewed-associative TLB can accommodate the concurrent use of multiple page sizes within a single process. This allows us to envision either medium size L1 TLBs or very large L2 TLBs supporting multiple page sizes.

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