Segmentation (memory) - Definition and Overview

Segmentation is one of the most common ways to achieve memory protection; another common one is paging. Segmentation means that a part, or parts, of the memory is/are sealed off from the process currently running by two hardware registers. If the data that is about to be read, or written to, is outside the permitted address space of that process, a general protection fault will fire. This should not be confused with the x86-processors realmode segmentation.

See also

• Memory protection
• Virtual memory