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Cached Physical Memory--kseg0

When address bits 31:29 contain 100, access is directed to physical memory through the cache. If the addressed location is not in the cache, bits 28:0 are placed on the system bus as a physical memory address, and the data presented by memory or a device is returned.

Since only 29 bits are available for mapping physical memory, only 512 MB of physical memory space can be accessed through this segment in 32-bit mode (some of which must be reserved for device addressing). It is possible to gain cached access to wider physical addresses by mapping through the TLB into kseg2, but systems that need access to more physical memory typically run in 64-bit mode (see "Cache-Controlled Physical Memory--xkphys").

Kseg0 contains the exception address to which the MIPS processor branches it when it detects an exception such as an addressing exception or TLB miss.


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