A CPU contains an electronic path (local or internal bus) along which bits (signals) are transmitted to/from the different CPU components. This bus carries data, address, and control bits. The number of data bits that a CPU can process at a time is the CPU word size. The CPU connects to other computer components through external buses. These are the data bus, the address bus, and the control bus. Different CPUs support different sizes for these buses. A CPU that supports an n-bit address bus can address up to 2n memory locations since each of the n bits can be set to 1 or 0. Examples are shown. |
