CS 2301 Learning Journal Unit 7

Question 1

This week on the applications of physical memory, I have chosen to focus on memory

management in Android devices and iPhones.

For Android devices, RAM is crucial with the design intended to support several hardware

configurations, manufacturers, and processor types. Generally, software intended for a particular

system cannot function in another, requiring porting, which involves rewriting the conflicting

bits. Android apps make use of the Java platform to circumvent this. The advantage of Java is its

niftiness, whereby the developer only needs to code the app once, followed by translation by the

virtual machine (VM) during runtime enabling the app to function on different systems.

However, this has a downside to it. The Java VM demands a lot of RAM and is complex for

holding the translated code and the initial Java code and managing the VM processes.

Compared to Android, iOS devices demand lesser RAM. This is because:

Hardware Optimization

The iOS is tested thoroughly and is designed only to be used in their hardware. The shared

hardware platform is another beneficial feature of iOS. Through this platform, Apple eliminates

the requirement for developing flexible and robust system codes for other hardware.

Stable Management of RAM

Various techniques are adopted to ensure better RAM management. During the end of tasks, the

system does not terminate after short intervals, unlike Android devices, whereby a lesser default
interval is applied. This increases RAM consumption and system instability since during app

reopening, the system cannot do so from the RAM.

IOS features task prioritization, whereby the system prioritizes various tasks on a severity basis.

For example, in contrast to Android, the iOS user interface consists of real-time priority

rendering. The Android user interface is assigned a regular priority, with higher priority assigned

to the background processes. This means that the background processes utilize more RAM

slowing down the interface.

Android assigns a normal priority to the user interface, and instead, the background process takes

a higher priority. This means that apps running in the background can get more of the processor's

resources, making the interface slow down.

Question 2

The week's focus has been on physical memory. From the discussion forum, it was clear that

there is a need to improve the current state of physical memory. To this end, I conducted

research on recent developments in computing memory storage management and capacity. An

interesting upcoming technology is resistive random access memory (RRAM). RRAM has been

preferred due to its CMOS compatibility, ultrafast switching, low fabrication costs, extended

retention and endurance features, mature metal-insulator-metal (M-I-M), low power

consumption, and speed. All these benefits advance memory management and improve system

performance.