Byte addressing

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Byte addressing refers to hardware architectures which support accessing individual bytes of data rather than only larger units called words.

The basic unit of digital storage is called a bit. In most common computer architectures, 8 bits are grouped together to form a byte. Byte addressable memory refers to architectures where data can be accessed 8 bits at a time, irrespective of the width of the data and address buses.

Many common architectures can address more than 8 bits of data at a time. For example, the Intel 386SX processor can handle 16 bit data, i.e. two bytes, since data is transferred over a 16 bit bus. But data in memory may be of various lengths. For example, A 64-bit architecture machine might still need to access byte sized data over its 64 bit address line. Such memory, which is accessible 8 bits at a time is called Byte-Addressable Memory.