Operating Systems

Simple/Basic
Segmentation

A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Real Memory Management
• Background
• Memory Management Requirements
• Fixed/Static Partitioning
• Variable/Dynamic Partitioning
• Simple/Basic Paging
• Simple/Basic Segmentation
• Segmentation with Paging

2 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Simple/Basic Segmentation
• Paging division is arbitrary; no natural/logical
boundaries for protection/sharing.
• Segmentation supports user’s view of a
program.
• A program is a collection of segments –
logical units – such as:
main program, subprogram, class
procedure, function,
object, method,
local variables, global variables,
common block,
stack, symbolA.table, arrays
3 Frank - P. Weisberg
 User’s View of a Program

4 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Example of Segmentation Need

• A compiler has many tables that are built up

as compilation proceeds, possibly including:
1. The source text being saved for the printed listing
(on batch systems).
2. The symbol table – the names and attributes of
variables.
3. The table containing integer, floating-point
constants used.
4. The parse tree, the syntactic analysis of the program.
5. The stack used for procedure calls within the
compiler.
5 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 One-dimensional address space

In a one-dimensional address space with growing tables, one table

may bump into another.
6 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Segmentation Solution

Segmentation allows each table to grow or shrink

independently of the other tables.
7 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Dynamics of Simple Segmentation (1)

• Each program is subdivided into blocks of non-

equal size called segments.
• When a process gets loaded into main memory,
its different segments can be located anywhere.
• Each segment is fully packed with
instructions/data; no internal fragmentation.
• There is external fragmentation; it is reduced
when using small segments.

8 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Logical view of simple segmentation

4
1

3 2
4

user space physical memory space

9 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Dynamics of Simple Segmentation (2)
• In contrast with paging, segmentation is visible
to the programmer:
– provided as a convenience to organize logically
programs (example: data in one segment, code in
another segment).
– must be aware of segment size limit.
• The OS maintains a segment table for each
process. Each entry contains:
– the starting physical addresses of that segment.
– the length of that segment (for protection).
10 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Example of Segmentation

11 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Logical address in segmentation

12 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Logical address used in segmentation
• When a process enters the Running state, a dedicated
register gets loaded with the starting address of the
process’s segment table.
• Presented with a logical address (segment number,
offset) = (s, d), the CPU indexes (with s) the segment
table to obtain the starting physical address b and the
length l of that segment.
• The physical address is obtained by adding d to b (in
contrast with paging):
– the hardware also compares the offset d with the length l of
that segment to determine if the address is valid.
13 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Logical-to-Physical Address Translation in segmentation

14 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Segmentation Architecture
• Logical address consists of a two tuple:
<segment-number, offset>,
• Segment table – maps two-dimensional physical addresses;
each table entry has:
– base – contains the starting physical address where the
segments reside in memory.
– limit – specifies the length of the segment.
• Segment-table base register (STBR) points to the segment
table’s location in memory.
• Segment-table length register (STLR) indicates number of
segments used by a program; segment-number s is legal
if s < STLR.
15 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Address Translation Architecture

16 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Protection in Segmentation
• Protection – with each entry in segment table
associate:
– validation bit = 0  illegal segment
– read/write/execute privileges
• Protection bits associated with segments;
code sharing occurs at segment level.
• Since segments vary in length, memory
allocation is a dynamic storage-allocation
problem.
17 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Sharing in Segmentation Systems

• Segments are shared when entries in the

segment tables of 2 different processes point to
the same physical locations.
• Example: the same code of a text editor can be
shared by many users:
– Only one copy is kept in main memory.
• But each user would still need to have its own
private data segment.

18 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Shared Segments Example

19
 Simple segmentation/paging comparison (1)

• Segmentation is visible to the programmer

whereas paging is transparent.
• Naturally supports protection/sharing.
• Segmentation can be viewed as commodity
offered to the programmer to logically organize
a program into segments while using different
kinds of protection (example: execute-only for
code but read-write for data).

20 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
21 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Simple segmentation/paging comparison (2)

• Segments are variable-size; Pages are fixed-

size.
• Segmentation requires more complicated
hardware for address translation than paging.
• Segmentation suffers from external
fragmentation. Paging only yields a small
internal fragmentation.
• Maybe combine Segmentation and Paging?
22 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Example: MULTICS
• The MULTICS system solved problems of
external fragmentation and lengthy search
times by paging the segments.
• Solution differs from pure segmentation in that
the segment-table entry contains not the base
address of the segment, but rather the base
address of a page table for this segment.
• Example in the next slide.

23 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 MULTICS Address Translation Scheme

24 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Example: The Intel Pentium

• Supports both segmentation and

segmentation with paging.
• CPU generates logical address
– Given to segmentation unit which produces
linear addresses.
– Linear address given to paging unit:
• Which generates physical address in main
memory.
• Paging units form equivalent of MMU.
25 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Logical to Physical Address Translation

26 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Intel Pentium Segmentation

27 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Pentium Paging Architecture

28 A. Frank - P. Weisberg
 Three-level Paging in Linux

29 A. Frank - P. Weisberg