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AFAIK this definition is the most clear and physical:

Associativity number = Number of comparators.

Is it correct? Could you make a more precise / better definition?

The wikipedia illustration is somewhat difficult to look at:

enter image description here

clabacchio
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Niklas Rosencrantz
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    Not sure if this is the correct place to ask - perhaps [su] would give a better reply. –  Apr 16 '13 at 08:43

1 Answers1

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Yes, that is essentially correct. The key question is, "For any particular memory address, how many different locations in the cache can hold that address?" Each one of those potential cache locations needs a tag comparator in order to determine whether that location does in fact currently contain that memory address.

Dave Tweed
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