'Does memory address always refer to one byte, not one bit?

  1. Can you confirm that memory address in a PC is alway pointing to one byte (8 bits)?
  2. If a float number needs 32 bits in memory, does the computer allocate 4-sequential bytes (32 bits total) to represent that number?
memorycpu-architecture


Solution 1:[1]

  1. Yes, a memory address always contains a byte address. I can't think of a single CPU architecture that supports bit-level addressing.

  2. A CPU native float will always be stored in sequential memory locations. This is true for all native CPU types.

Solution 2:[2]

  1. let's make it more generic and say "computing unit" instead of "PC" so the answer will be YES. Some Designers do that for a purpose of performance.

EX: In ARM cortex m4 processor there are some memory space that is reserved for bit access (i.e. each address in that space contains only 1 bit). Read about bit banding for more details.

  1. Yes absolutely and that is applicable for all data types (int, string, ..)

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Sean
Solution 2 Ahmed Farouk

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