64-bit Computing

As applications continue to become more functional and more complex, and as data sets grow in size, the address space requirements of existing applications continue to grow. Today, certain classes of applications need to exceed the 4 Gigabyte address space limitations of 32-bit systems. Examples of applications that exceed the 4 Gigabyte address space include

• Various database applications, particularly those applications that perform data mining

• Web caches and Web search engines

• Components of CAD and CAE simulation and modeling tools

• Scientific computing

The desire to make these applications and other large applications run efficiently has been the primary impetus for the development of 64-bit computing.