In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE) is a feature to allow 32-bit x86 processors to access a physical address space (including random access memory and memory mapped devices) larger than 4 gigabytes.
First implemented in the Intel Pentium Pro in 1995, it was extended by AMD to add a level to the page table hierarchy, to allow it to handle up to 52-bit physical addresses, add NX bit functionality, and make it the mandatory memory paging model in long mode. PAE is provided by Intel Pentium Pro and above CPUs, including all later Pentium-series processors (except most 400 MHz-bus versions of the Pentium M). It is also available on other processors with similar or more advanced versions of the same architecture, such as the AMD Athlon and later AMD processor models.
Read more about Physical Address Extension: Design, Page Table Structures, Operating System Support
Famous quotes containing the words physical, address and/or extension:
“For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
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“The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)