In the context of memory management, which of the following is a key characteristic of the paging technique?

Paging is a memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous allocation of physical memory. The virtual memory space of a process is divided into fixed-size blocks called pages, which are mapped to physical memory frames of the same size. One downside of paging is internal fragmentation , which occurs because pages are fixed in size. If a process does not use up an entire page, the unused space in that page leads to wasted memory. For example, if a page size is 4 KB and a process only needs 3.5 KB, the remaining 0.5 KB is wasted due to internal fragmentation. Paging helps in implementing virtual memory and allows processes to be allocated memory in a non-contiguous manner, which increases flexibility in memory allocation and avoids external fragmentation. Why Other Options Are Wrong: A) Pages are variable-sized memory blocks: Pages are fixed-sized, not variable-sized. It is segmentation that deals with variable-sized memory blocks. C) Paging involves swapping entire processes: Paging swaps pages, not entire processes. This allows for more granular and efficient memory management. D) Paging ensures that memory is contiguous: Paging ensures that memory is non-contiguous, allowing processes to be allocated memory in scattered physical locations. E) Pages can dynamically change size: Pages are of a fixed size and do not change dynamically during program execution.