Design and evaluation of a cache memory simulation program

We present the results of the evaluation we carried out concerning the cache memory simulation programs available on the Internet. We also present the results of a research, which we conducted, concerning students' understanding of the cache memory internal operation and implementation and the role of the cache memory in the communication between the CPU and the main memory. Based on the evaluation results and the research results, we designed a cache memory simulation program, which implements a realistic model of the cache operation. The main results of the program's evaluation pointed out that, after using the simulation program the students had a better understanding of the cache memory operations (identification, placement, replacement) for a direct mapped cache and a set associative cache.