Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
[2] [3] In simple memory subsystems, the word is transferred over the memory data bus, which typically has a width of a word or half-word. In memory subsystems that use caches , the word-sized transfer is the one between the processor and the first level of cache; at lower levels of the memory hierarchy larger transfers (which are a multiple of ...
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. 1 byte (B) = 8 bits (bit).Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer [1] [2] and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures.
When b is 2, the unit is the shannon, equal to the information content of one "bit". A system with 8 possible states, for example, can store up to log 2 8 = 3 bits of information. Other units that have been named include: Base b = 3 the unit is called "trit", and is equal to log 2 3 (≈ 1.585) bits. [3] Base b = 10
Frequently, half, full, double and quadruple words consist of a number of bytes which is a low power of two. A string of four bits is usually a nibble . In information theory , one bit is the information entropy of a random binary variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, [ 3 ] or the information that is gained when the value of such a ...
The international standard IEC 60027-2, chapter 3.8.2, states that a byte is an octet of bits. However, the unit byte has historically been platform -dependent and has represented various storage sizes in the history of computing .
Some early processors held 2 and even 3 addresses per instruction word. In theory, modern byte-addressable 64-bit computers can address 2 64 bytes (16 exbibytes), but in practice the amount of memory is limited by the CPU, the memory controller, or the printed circuit board design (e.g., number of physical memory connectors or amount of ...
The IBM System/360 of the 1960s was an early 32-bit computer; it had 32-bit integer registers, although it only used the low order 24 bits of a word for addresses, resulting in a 16 MiB (16 × 1024 2 bytes) address space. 32-bit superminicomputers, such as the DEC VAX, became common in the 1970s, and 32-bit microprocessors, such as the Motorola ...
In computer architecture, 36-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 36 bits (six six-bit characters) wide. Also, 36-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. 36-bit computers were popular in the early mainframe computer era from the 1950s ...