Explain how DMA improves system performance. and cycle stealing.

What will be an ideal response?

Although both processors and channels need to have access to a memory module, only one may control the bus at a time. Early systems transferred datacharacter or word at a time to memory and interrupted the processor after each transfer.These interrupts reduced the time during which a processor could execute program instructions. With DMA, the processor is interrupted only after a block of data has been transferred. Once an I/O operation is initiated, characters are transferred to memory on a cycle-stealing basis. The channel temporarily usurps the processor’s path to storage while a character is being transferred, then the processor continues operation. Favoring the channel over the processor helps keep the I/O devices operating efficiently; this is particularly critical in interactive systems, where the I/O consists of interactive user communication.