What is latency with respect to memory? How does it influence the time required to execute an instruction?

Latency is the time (delay) between initiating a request for a byte or word in memory until it is retrieved by a processor. Puting it in simple words, latency is the time it takes for you to press a key on the keyboard and the computer to recognize the instruction.

If the data required to execute the instruction is not in the processor's cache, it takes longer to obtain it, therefore, latency is a fundamental measure of the speed of memory, the less the latency, the faster the reading operation.

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