Bits, Nibbles, and Bytes in Memory

 

Computers are state machines built from simple raw materials:

• A transistor is an electronic switch with two states: ON and OFF
• A capacitor stores electric enery of a positive or negative charge
• These two building blocks can be paired to from a DRAM memory cell

Your computer likely has over 68,719,476,736 DRAM memory cells.

Each stores one bit of information. A bit has two states: 1 or 0.

The programs and data your computer processes are possible by combining and interpreting groups of bits as more meaningful units.. data abstraction!

 

Groupings of Bits

• A computer system's word size is architecture dependent. Your laptop's 64-bit processor uses 64-bit words.
• byte: 8 bits of memory
• nibble: 4 bits

 

참고