Technical Reference — 16 Chapters

Memory Management Units
and TLBs

A rigorous, implementation-level guide to address translation — from foundational virtual memory concepts through AI/ML accelerator memory systems. Targets systems engineers, OS developers, hardware architects, and ML infrastructure teams.

16Chapters
165SVG Figures
3Architectures
~160KWords
x86-64 ARM64 RISC-V GPU / AI Accelerators
Chapters
01
Memory Hierarchy and the Translation Problem
23 figures296 KB
02
Virtual Memory Concepts
10 figures232 KB
03
Page Table Structures and Implementation
15 figures296 KB
04
TLB Architecture and Organization
9 figures328 KB
05
IOMMU and Device Address Translation
8 figures362 KB
06
Memory Protection and Access Control
8 figures335 KB
07
Page Faults and Exception Handling
8 figures753 KB
08
Advanced MMU Topics: System Integration and Optimization
10 figures329 KB
09
Advanced Page Table Optimizations
8 figures338 KB
10
Device Memory and Peripheral Translation
8 figures358 KB
11
AI/ML Accelerator Memory Systems
13 figures420 KB
12
Multi-GPU TLB Coordination at Scale
7 figures251 KB
13
Machine Learning for MMU Optimization
7 figures131 KB
14
Software-Managed Memory for LLM Serving
8 figures226 KB
15
Alternative Translation Architectures
12 figures212 KB
16
Advanced TLB Optimization Techniques
11 figures217 KB
Reading Paths
🖥️

Systems / OS Developers

Chapters 1–9 form a complete foundation covering paging, faults, reclaim, and optimizations.

⚙️

Hardware Architects

Chapters 4, 5, 10, 15, 16 cover translation hardware, IOMMUs, and advanced TLB design.

🤖

AI/ML Infrastructure

Chapters 11–14 address GPU and accelerator memory, LLM serving, and ML-based optimization.

🔒

Security Researchers

Chapter 6 covers the full protection model; Chapters 5 and 12 cover device and multi-tenant isolation.

Architecture Coverage
Processor Family Key Structures Covered
x86-64 (Intel / AMD) CR3, PML4/PDPT/PD/PT, PCID, INVPCID, INVLPG, KPTI, SGX, VT-d, EPT, AMD NPT
ARM64 (ARMv8 / v9) TTBR0/TTBR1_EL1, ASID, TLBI, TrustZone, Stage-2 (IPA→PA), SMMUv3
RISC-V satp, Sv39/Sv48/Sv57, ASID, SFENCE.VMA, VMID in hgatp, G-stage translation
GPU / AI Accelerators NVIDIA UVM, NVLink/NVSwitch peer-to-peer, TPU HBM, Intel Gaudi2, PagedAttention

Format

Each chapter is a self-contained HTML file with:

  • All SVG diagrams embedded inline
  • Print-optimised CSS with page-break controls
  • Linked Table of Contents
  • Pandoc-standard typography
  • Sidebar navigation (this sidebar)

Open any chapter directly in a browser, print to PDF, or host as GitHub Pages.

Citations

Content cites peer-reviewed literature, processor architecture manuals, and production system papers:

  • Intel SDM, AMD64 APM, ARM ARM, RISC-V Privileged Spec
  • ISCA, MICRO, ASPLOS, USENIX papers
  • IEEE-style references in every chapter
  • Minimum 8 references per chapter; AI chapters ≥ 12

Speculative claims about proprietary implementations are avoided.