What is word length of a computer or microprocessor?

The word length of microprocessor leads to the n-bit, where n may be 8, 16,32 or so on. The similarity in them is that this number n should be multiple of 2. A binary digit 0 or 1 is called a bit. An 8-bit microprocessor can process 9-bit of data at a time. If data consists of more than 8 bit the processor or the microprocessor of computer system then computer first process the 8-bit data and then go to the next 8-bit of data for its processing. The result thus obtained in then sent to the memory for its storage or to the display devices. Its ALU is designed to process 8-bit of data at a time. Its general purpose registers which hold the data for processing are 8-bit long registers. Similarly, when we take an case of an 16-bit microprocessor based computer system then the functioning will still remain the same but the only difference that now the processing of data is performed in packets of 16-bit i.e. the data having more than 16-bit of capacity is processed such that first the 16 bits are processed followed by the processing of remaining bits and so on.

This leads to the accomplishment of more complex calculations done with limited and present capabilities. This procedure goes on for all the other types of processor.

This is called the word length of the processor that how many bits of data can it process at a time without break in between them. This leads to the word length of the computer system because it is actually the microprocessor that works in it. A microprocessor of larger word length is more powerful that the others. This is because the computer having more word length can work faster and efficiently.