L1, L2, and L3 cache naming convention? What is the etymology of L1, L2, and L3 caches?

Question

I'm taking a systems course and we're being introduced the L1, L2, and L3 caches. The book doesn't cover why these are called "L1" as opposed to something else (e.g. fast cache 1, etc.). I'm thinking of it as level 1, level 2, and level 3. But I was wondering if anyone knows the actual reason behind the naming system?'

Thanks,

Answer 1

"Level" is jargon, and is a common word in stacked architectures of anything.

A good picture of stacked memory architecture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hierarchy