Time Slice

Definitions

1. The short, fixed duration of CPU time (typically 1–10 milliseconds) that an OS scheduler allocates to a process or thread before preempting it and switching to another, enabling multitasking on a single core.

   In plain English: A tiny chunk of processor time given to each running program before the operating system switches to the next one.

   Example: "With a 4ms time slice, the scheduler rotates through 250 threads per second on a single core — it looks concurrent but it's just fast switching."

Related Terms

• Fiber
• Task
• Work Stealing
• IPC
• Memory Segment
• Multi-Threading
• OS Thread
• Preemptive Scheduling
• Scheduler
• Shared Memory
• Spawning