Different units of memory

A computer system uses electrical components (e.g., integrated circuits and semiconductors) to handle data or information stored in it. Such components can only understand and recognize the presence or absence of electrical signals. That is why a computer uses two different states, such as 0 (zero) and 1 (one). 

The two symbols, 0 and 1, are known as bits or binary digits. While 0 indicates the absence (passive state) of the signal, 1 indicates the presence (active state) of the signal. However, a bit at a time can only store one of these two binary values, i.e., either 0 or 1. Therefore, multiple bits in a combined form are capable of holding a greater range of values.

A nibble is a collection of 4 bits.

A byte is a collection of eight bits sequenced together to create a single computer alphabetical or numerical character. One byte, or eight bits, was the original amount of information needed to encode the characters of the text. The number was later standardized after upgrades in computer hardware.

A byte is referred to as the fundamental unit of measurement for the data on a computer system. It is because bytes can be more often represented in larger multiples, such as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes, and Petabytes. Bytes are stored digitally (such as disk, tape, etc.) to define the amount of data on storage. Additionally, bytes also help in measuring memory and document size.

Like a byte, a computer word is also a combination of a fixed number of bits. It is another basic memory unit of a computer system. The number of bits in a word may vary for each computer system; however, it remains fixed for a particular computer.

Computer word length is commonly represented as word-size or word length. Because it varies from one system to another; therefore, it can be as short as 8 bits or as long as 96 bits. A computer system usually stores data or information in the form of computer words.