aadressibussi

An address bus is a part of a computer's system bus that is used to transfer addresses from the processor to other hardware components, such as memory or I/O devices. The address bus specifies the location in memory where the processor wants to read data from or write data to, or the specific I/O device it wishes to communicate with.

The width of the address bus determines the maximum amount of memory that the processor can address. For example, a processor with a 32-bit address bus can address 2^32 bytes of memory, which is approximately 4 gigabytes. A wider address bus allows the system to access more memory.

In a typical computer architecture, the address bus is unidirectional, meaning data only flows from the processor to other components. This is because the processor dictates which memory location or device is being accessed. The size of the address bus is a crucial design parameter that affects the overall capabilities and cost of a computer system. Different processors have different address bus widths, impacting their memory addressing capabilities. The address bus is distinct from the data bus, which carries the actual data being transferred, and the control bus, which carries control signals.