What difference does 32 bits really make?

The phrases “8 bits”, “32 bits”, and “64 bits” are seen quite frequently these days, but what do they really mean? They mean that microcontroller’s internal pathways can carry that many bits of data at the same time. At the very least, this means that whenever a 32-bit microcontroller wants to get information from memory, it can get 4 times as much as an 8-bit microcontroller could in the same amount of time, just as a 32 lane highway could carry 4 times as many cars at a time than an 8 lane highway could. Furthermore, it means that most of the internal processing, such as mathematical calculations, work on 32 bits at a time. This means that numerical calculations will be much faster. This, coupled with the faster clock speed, makes these boards practical for larger programs and more complex calculations where an 8-bit microcontroller might not have been able to read sensors, analyze the data, make a decision, and output control signals fast enough.


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