<architecture> A cache where the cache location for a given address is determined from the middle address bits. If the cache line size is 2^n then the bottom n address bits correspond to an offset within a cache entry. If the cache can hold 2^m entries then the next m address bits give the cache location. The remaining top address bits are stored as a "tag" along with the entry. In this scheme, there is no choice of which block to flush on a cache miss since there is only one place for any block to go. This simple scheme has the disadvantage that if the program alternately accesses different addresses which map to the same cache location then it will suffer a cache miss on every access to these locations. This kind of {cache conflict} is quite likely on a multi-processor. See also fully associative cache, set associative cache.

A cache where data from any address can be stored in any cache location. The whole address must be used as the tag. All tags must be compared simultaneously (associatively) with the requested address and if one matches then its associated data is accessed. This requires an associative memory to hold the tags which makes this form of cache more expensive. It does however solve the problem of contention for cache locations (cache conflict) since a block need only be flushed when the whole cache is full and then the block to flush can be selected in a more efficient way. See also direct mapped cache, set associative cache.

<architecture> A compromise between a direct mapped cache and a fully associative cache where each address is mapped to a certain set of cache locations. The address space is divided into blocks of 2^m bytes (the cache line size), discarding the bottom m address bits. An "n-way set associative" cache with S sets has n cache locations in each set. Block b is mapped to set "b mod S" and may be stored in any of the n locations in that set with its upper address bits as a tag. To determine whether block b is in the cache, set "b mod S" is searched associatively for the tag. A direct mapped cache could be described as "one-way set associative", i.e. one location in each set whereas a fully associative cache is N-way associative (where N is the total number of blocks in the cache). Performance studies have shown that it is generally more effective to increase the number of entries rather than associativity and that 2- to 16-way set associative caches perform almost as well as fully associative caches at little extra cost over direct mapping. (2004-10-18)