Logical Address vs Physical Address
What is logical address space?
Logical address is the address generated by the CPU.
The set of all logical addresses generated by a program is referred to as logical address space.
What is physical address space?
Physical address is the address loaded into the memory’s memory-address register.
The physical address cannot be directly accessed by the user, but the user can calculate it through the logical address.
Set of all physical addresses is referredto as physical address space.
Memory Management Unit in OS (MMU)
MMU does the virtual mapping from the virtual address to the physical address.
It is a hardware device located within the Central Processing Unit (CPU).
Logical Address vs Physical Address
| Logical Address | Physical Address |
| It is accessible by the users. | It is not accessible by the users. |
| The set of logical addresses is termed as Logical Address Space. | The set of physical addresses is termed as Physical Address Space. |
| Logical address is generated by the CPU. | Physical address is computed by the MMU. |
| It is also known as Virtual address, as it does not exist physically in the memory. | Physical address can be accessed physically. |
| Directly accessible to the user. | The physical address can be accessed through the logical address. |