It accounts for the fact that hits and misses affect memory system performance differently.
In addition, AMAT can be extended recursively to multiple layers of the memory hierarchy.
Recently AMAT has been extended to consider concurrent data access.
A model, called Concurrent-AMAT (C-AMAT), is introduced for more accurate analysis of current memory systems.
More information on C-AMAT can be found in the external links section.
AMAT's three parameters hit time (or hit latency), miss rate, and miss penalty provide a quick analysis of memory systems.
In this manner, this recursive definition can be extended throughout all layers of the memory hierarchy.