Why an ARM processor with 32 bits address bus can address 4 billion different bytes?

Question

Why an ARM processor with 32 bits address bus can address 4 billion different bytes? I know that 2^32 is equal to about 4 billions, but shouldn't it be 4 billion bits and not bytes? Hence if I want to find how many different words it can address it should be 2^32 / 8 so I will have the number of bytes, and if I want to find the number of words I divide it again by 4 (because a word in ARM is 32 bits = 4 bytes).

Answer 1

Hi! Consider the fact that a Byte is a smallest addressable unit of memory, and a Byte = 8 bits ... so each possible 2^32 address value does not point to a single 1/0 but, but rather an 8-bit Byte area of memory. So yes, in total: 4,294,967,296 Bytes - aka 4GB

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