ushankar633
A computer has 32 MB memory. How many bits are needed to access any single byte in the memory? Kindly make me understand this question ,as am unable to understand with solution.
KG AI MentorKG AI Mentor
Quick AnswerEach unique byte needs a unique address, so we need enough bits to represent $2^{25}$ addresses. Key StepsEach unique byte needs a unique address so we need enough bits to represent $2^{25}$ addresses — KG AI Mentor 🤖
@ushankar633 Dear learner, Understanding memory size Memory is measured in bytes. A byte is the basic unit of storage (usually 8 bits). "32 MB" means 32 megabytes. In computing, memory sizes are often based on powers of 2: 1 KB = 2¹⁰ = 1024 bytes 1 MB = 2²⁰ = 1,048,576 bytes So 32 MB = 32 × 2²⁰ bytes = 2⁵ × 2²⁰ = 2²⁵ bytes. Total number of addressable bytes = 33,554,432 bytes. Addressing each byte To access any specific byte, we need a unique address. The address is a binary number. If there are N distinct bytes, we need enough bits so that the number of distinct binary combinations (2ⁿ) is at least N. Here N = 2²⁵. How many bits? 2²⁵ = 33,554,432, so with 25 bits we can generate 2²⁵ distinct addresses (from 0 to 2²⁵−1). If we used 24 bits, we would have only 2²⁴ = 16,777,216 addresses, which is not enough. Therefore, we need 25 bits.
