In memory addressing for Intel x86 computer architectures, segment descriptors are a part of the segmentation unit, used for translating a logical address to linear address. Segment descriptors describe the memory segment referred in the logical address[1] A logical address in Intel x86 consists of a segment selector and an offset. The most significant 13 bits of the segment selector defines the address of the segment descriptor, which is stored either in the Global Descriptor Table (GDT) or Local Descriptor Table (LDT). The description details mainly include the memory segment's first byte in linear address (Base), size (Limit) and Type (Bovet & Cesati, 2000, p. 36 - 41). See also memory segment, segmentation and memory address for more details on related topics.
References
- ^ Bovet, D.P., & Cesati, M. (2000). Understanding the Linux Kernel (First Edition). O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Further reading
- Robert R. Collins (August 1998). The Segment Descriptor Cache. Dr Dobb's Journal.
