Chapter 9 - Question #3 of 7

What are the advantages and disadvantages of associative memory as compared to other types of memory? Would you expect associative memory to be very large or very small?  Why?

Advantages of associative memory is that the memory can be set up so blocks of data are accessed instead of individual memory locations.  This is done because instructions are typically loaded into memory one location after another.  Instead of having to access the memory each time, it can be accessed as a block of data.  By having several successive memory locations of data already loaded, seek times can be decreased, decreasing calculation times.  Another advantage is that "we have a lot of flexibility in determining which cache slots to replace, " and which one to keep loaded for future accesses.  A disadvantage of associative cache is that it is expensive.  I would expect it to be small since it is so expensive when compared to other types of memory.

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