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Oct 13, 2011 · A less common term is word, which is a given computer architecture’s native unit of data. A word is made up of one or more bytes. For example, a computer that has 64-bit registers and 64- bit memory addressing typically has 64-bit (8-byte) words. A computer executes many operations in its native word size rather than a byte at a time.
Word (computer architecture) In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits [a] in a word (the word size, word width, or word length) is an important characteristic of any ...
A byte is typically composed of 8 bits, making it the smallest addressable unit of memory in most computer systems. This means that a byte can represent 256 different values, ranging from 0 to 255. On the other hand, a word is usually made up of multiple bytes, with the size varying depending on the architecture of the system.
- Bytes
- Bytes, Processors, and Programming
- Words
- Words and Operations
- Conclusion
The smallest unit of digital information is the binary bit. Modern processors don’t however perform direct operations on them, not even bitwise logic. Instead, they operate on collections of bits that take the name of bytes, and that are the smallest units of information that they can address in the memory. The byte today consists of 8 bits, but th...
A byte is also the smallest unit of information that can have an address in the memory of a computer. While digital information uses bits as its fundamental unit, processors don’t directly operate on bits. Instead, they retrieve from the memory a byte containing the bit on which they need to operate. Then, they compute the required operation and st...
A word, instead, is a unit for data processing that’s specific to given computer architecture. We saw how the size of a byte originates from the encoding of characters; the size of a word, instead, depends on the instruction set of a processor. The word is, usually, the sequence of bits that can be transferred from the working memory to the registe...
Words can also have different structures, in the sense that they comprise bits with different meanings. Typical operations on words, such as logical manipulation, floating-point arithmetic, or address arithmetic, each use individual word structures. As an example, this is a structure for a 64-bit word for floating-point arithmetics: Where indicates...
In this tutorial, we analyzed the characteristics of words and bytes and discussed their different relationships with memory and processors.
For any computer architecture with an 8-bit byte, the word size is some multiple of 8 bits. In IBM's System/360 mainframe architecture, a word is 32 bits, or four contiguous 8-bit bytes. In Intel's PC processor architecture, a word is 16 bits, or two contiguous 8-bit bytes. In general, the longer the architected word length, the more the ...
Nov 16, 2020 · A word is a fixed-sized piece of data handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits in a word (the word size, word width, or word length) is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or computer architecture. The size of a word is reflected in many aspects of a computer's ...
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In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bit s or digits in a word (the word size, word width, or word length) is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or ...
