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context switch

Saving everything about one running program (its registers and where it was) and loading another's, so the core can run the other one.

A context switch saves one thread's architectural state (general and FP/vector registers, stack pointer, PC, flags) in the kernel and restores another's; switching between processes also switches the page-table base register, which may require TLB invalidation unless entries are tagged (PCID, ASID).

See also

translation lookaside buffer page-table base register architectural state base register
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