Memory Segmentation - X86 Architecture

X86 Architecture

The memory segmentation used by early x86 processors, beginning with the Intel 8086, does not provide any protection. Any program running on these processors can access any segment with no restrictions. A segment is only identified by its starting location; there is no length checking.

Segmentation in the Intel 80286 and later provides protection: with the introduction of the 80286, Intel retroactively named the sole operating mode of the previous x86 CPU models "real mode" and introduced a new "protected mode" with protection features. For backward compatibility, all x86 CPUs start in "real mode" with no memory protection, fixed 64 KiB segments, and only 20-bit (1024 KiB) addressing. An 80286 or later processor must be switched into another mode by software in order to use its full address space and advanced MMU features.

The x86-64 architecture does not use segmentation in long mode (64-bit mode). Four of the segment registers: CS, SS, DS, and ES are forced to 0, and the limit to 264. The segment registers FS and GS can still have a nonzero base address. This allows operating systems to use these segments for special purposes.

For instance, Microsoft Windows on x86-64 uses the GS segment to point to the Thread Environment Block, a small data structure for each thread, which contains information about exception handling, thread-local variables, and other per-thread state. Similarly, the Linux kernel uses the GS segment to store per-CPU data.