4 - bit - wikipedia 4 - bit Bit 8 12 16 18 24 26 31 32 36 48 60 64 128 256 512 Application 8 16 32 64 Binary floating point precision 16 32 40 64 80 128 256 × 1⁄2 × 1 × 2 × 4 × 8 Decimal floating point precision 32 64 128 In computer architecture, 4 - bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 4 bits wide. Also, 4 - bit CPU and ALU architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A group of four bits is also called a nibble and has sixteen ( 2 ) possible values. Some of the first microprocessors had a 4 - bit word length and were developed around 1970. The TMS 1000, the world 's first single - chip microprocessor, was a 4 - bit CPU ; it had a Harvard architecture, with an on - chip instruction ROM, 8 - bit - wide instructions and an on - chip data RAM with 4 - bit words. The first commercial microprocessor was the binary coded decimal ( BCD - based ) Intel 4004, developed for calculator applications in 1971 ; it had a 4 - bit word length, but had 8 - bit instructions and 12 - bit addresses. The HP Saturn processors, used in many Hewlett - Packard calculators between 1984 and 2015 ( including the HP 48 series of scientific calculators ) are `` 4 - bit '' ( or hybrid 64 - / 4 - bit ) machines ; as the Intel 4004 did, they string multiple 4 - bit words together, e.g. to form a 20 - bit memory address, and most of its registers are 64 bits, storing 16 4 - bit digits. The 4 - bit processors were programmed in assembly language or Forth, e.g. `` MARC4 Family of 4 bit Forth CPU '' because of the extreme size constraint on programs and because common programming languages ( for microcontrollers, 8 - bit and larger ), such as the C programming language, do not support 4 - bit ( C requires that the size of the char data type be at least 8 bits, and that all data types other than bitfields have a size that is a multiple of the character size ). While larger than 4 - bit values can be used by combining more than one manually, the language has to support the smaller values used in the combining. If not, assembly is the only option. The 1970s saw the emergence of 4 - bit software applications for mass markets like pocket calculators. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of research and commercial computers used bit slicing, in which the CPU 's arithmetic logic unit ( ALU ) was built from multiple 4 - bit - wide sections, each section including a chip such as an Am2901 or 74181 chip. The Zilog Z80, although it is an 8 - bit microprocessor, has a 4 - bit ALU. Contents 1 Modern uses 2 Details 3 List of 4 - bit processors 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Modern uses While 32 - and 64 - bit processors are more prominent in modern consumer electronics, 4 - bit CPUs continue to be used ( usually as part of a microcontroller ) in cost - sensitive applications which require minimal computing power. For example, one bicycle computer specifies that it uses a `` 4 bit 1 - chip microcomputer ''. Other typical uses include coffee makers, infrared remote controls, and security alarms. Use of 4 - bit processors has declined relative to 8 - bit or even 32 - bit processors as they are hard to find cheaper in general computer supplier 's stores. The simplest kinds are not available in any of them and others are `` Non-stock '' and more expensive ( a few expensive ones can be found, as of 2014, on eBay ). Electronics store still carry, as of 2014, non-CPU / non-MCU 4 - bit chips, such as counters. As of 2015, most PC motherboards, especially laptop motherboards, use a 4 - bit LPC bus ( introduced in 1998 ) to connect the southbridge to the motherboard firmware flash ROM ( UEFI or BIOS ) and the Super I / O chip. Details Main article : Nibble With four bits, it is possible to create 16 different values. All single digit hexadecimal numbers can be written with four bits. Binary - coded decimal is a digital encoding method for numbers using decimal notation, with each decimal digit represented by four bits. Binary Octal Decimal Hexadecimal 0000 0 0 0 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 5 5 5 0110 6 6 6 0111 7 7 7 1000 10 8 8 1001 11 9 9 1010 12 10 1011 13 11 1100 14 12 1101 15 13 1110 16 14 1111 17 15 List of 4 - bit processors Intel C4004 an infrared remote control transmitter controlled by a NEC D63GS 4 - bit microcontroller NEC D63GS : a 4 - bit microcontroller for infrared remote control transmission Olympia CD700 Desktop Calculator using the National Semiconductor MAPS MM570X bit - serial 4 - bit microcontroller National Semiconductor MM5700CA / D bit - serial 4 - bit microcontroller TMS 1000 Intel 4004 Intel 4040 10NES Atmel MARC4 core -- ( discontinued : `` Last ship date : March 7, 2015 '' ) Samsung S3C7 ( KS57 Series ) 4 - bit microcontrollers ( RAM : 512 to 5264 nibbles, 6 MHz clock ) Toshiba TLCS - 47 series HP Saturn NEC μPD75X NEC μCOM - 4 NEC ( now Renesas ) μPD612xA ( discontinued ), μPD613x, μPD6x and μPD1724x infrared remote control transmitter microcontrollers EM Microelectronic - Marin EM6600 family, EM6580, EM6682, etc. Epson S1C63 family National Semiconductor MAPS MM570X See also GMC - 4 Low Pin Count References Jump up ^ TMS 1000 Series Data Manual ( PDF ). Texas Instruments. December 1976. Retrieved July 20, 2013. Jump up ^ Mack, Pamela E. ( November 30, 2005 ). `` The Microcomputer Revolution ''. Retrieved 2009 - 12 - 23. Jump up ^ `` History in the Computing Curriculum '' ( PDF ). Retrieved 2017 - 06 - 22. Jump up ^ `` The Saturn Processor ''. Retrieved December 23, 2015. Jump up ^ `` Guide to the Saturn Processor ''. Retrieved January 14, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Introduction to Saturn Assembly Language ''. Retrieved January 14, 2014. Jump up ^ Forth Chips Jump up ^ ISO / IEC 9899 : 1999 specification. p. 20, § 5.2. 4.2. 1. Jump up ^ ISO / IEC 9899 : 1999 specification. p. 37, § 6.2. 6.1 ( 4 ). Jump up ^ Marshall Cline. `` C++ FAQ : the rules about bytes, chars, and characters ''. Jump up ^ `` 4 - bit integer ''. cplusplus.com. Retrieved November 21, 2014. Jump up ^ Masatoshi Shima ; Federico Faggin ; Ralph Ungermann ; Michael Slater. `` Zilog Oral History Panel on the Founding of the Company and the Development of the Z80 Microprocessor ''. Jump up ^ Ken Shirriff. `` The Z - 80 has a 4 - bit ALU. ''. Jump up ^ `` Cateye Commuter Manual '' ( PDF ). Retrieved February 11, 2014. ^ Jump up to : μPD67, 67A, 68, 68A, 69 4 - bit single - chip microcontroller for infrared remote control transmission Jump up ^ Haskell, Richard. `` Introduction to Digital Logic and Microprocessors ( Lecture 12.2 ) ''. Retrieved February 11, 2014. Jump up ^ http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/integrated-circuits-ics/embedded-microcontrollers/2556109?k=4-bit Jump up ^ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toshiba-TMP47C1637N-4bit-MCU-microcontroller-skinny-DIP42-/111294657595?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e9adb43b Jump up ^ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorola-IC-MC14500B-MC14500BCL-100-NEW-/320837692605 Jump up ^ http://www.ebay.com/itm/KL1868VE1-Soviet-CMOS-Clone-Matsushita-MN15500-4bit-MCU-/400212898610?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item5d2e8c3332 Jump up ^ Scott Mueller. `` Upgrading and Repairing Laptops ''. 2004. p. 176. Jump up ^ David S. Lawyer. `` Plug - and - Play - HOWTO : LPC Bus '' 2007. Jump up ^ `` MARC4 4 - bit Microcontrollers - Programmer 's Guide '' ( PDF ). Atmel. Archived from the original ( PDF ) on 2014 - 12 - 15. Retrieved January 14, 2014. Jump up ^ `` MARC4 4 - Bit Architecture ''. Atmel. Archived from the original on May 31, 2009. Jump up ^ Product End - of - Life ( EOL ) Notification Jump up ^ μPD6P9 4 - bit single - chip microcontroller for infrared remote control transmission Jump up ^ μPD17240, 17241, 17242, 17243, 17244, 17245, 17246 4 - bit single - chip microcontrollers for small general - purpose infrared remote control transmitters Jump up ^ Microcontrollers for Remote Controllers Jump up ^ `` Mask ROM / ROMless Products 4 / 8bit Remote Control ''. Archived from the original on October 28, 2008. Jump up ^ Robert Cravotta. `` Embedded Processing Directory '' Jump up ^ EM6580 Jump up ^ `` EM6580 low power Flash 4 - bit microcontroller '' Jump up ^ `` EM6682 '' External links Saturn CPU `` Products : High Performance 4 - bit Microcontrollers ( S1C63 family ) ''. Epson. Archived from the original on 2013 - 07 - 29. Considerations for 4 - bit processing CPU technologies Architecture Turing machine Post -- Turing machine Universal Turing machine Quantum Turing machine Belt machine Stack machine Register machine Counter machine Pointer machine Random access machine Random access stored program machine Finite - state machine Queue automaton Von Neumann Harvard ( modified ) HIVE ( Hierarchical Identify Verify Exploit ) Dataflow TTA Cellular Artificial neural network Machine learning Deep learning Neural processing unit ( NPU ) Convolutional neural network Load / store architecture Register memory architecture Register register architecture Endianness FIFO Zero - copy NUMA HUMA HSA Mobile computing Surface computing Wearable computing Heterogeneous computing Parallel computing Concurrent computing Distributed computing Cloud computing Amorphous computing Ubiquitous computing Fabric computing Reconfigurable computing Cognitive computing Analogous computing Mechanical computing Electric computing Hybrid computing Digital computing DNA computing Peptide computing Chemical computing Organic computing Wetware computing Quantum computing Neuromorphic computing Optical computing Reversible computing Unconventional computing Hypercomputation Ternary computer Symmetric multiprocessing ( SMP ) Asymmetric multiprocessing ( AMP ) Cache hierarchy Memory hierarchy ISA types ASIP CISC RISC EDGE ( TRIPS ) VLIW ( EPIC ) MISC OISC NISC ZISC Comparison ISAs x86 z / Architecture ARM MIPS Power Architecture ( PowerPC ) SPARC VISC Mill Itanium ( IA - 64 ) Alpha Prism SuperH Clipper VAX Unicore PA - RISC MicroBlaze Word size 1 - bit 2 - bit 4 - bit 8 - bit 9 - bit 10 - bit 12 - bit 15 - bit 16 - bit 18 - bit 22 - bit 24 - bit 25 - bit 26 - bit 27 - bit 31 - bit 32 - bit 33 - bit 34 - bit 36 - bit 39 - bit 40 - bit 48 - bit 50 - bit 60 - bit 64 - bit 128 - bit 256 - bit 512 - bit Variable Execution Instruction pipelining Bubble Operand forwarding Out - of - order execution Register renaming Speculative execution Branch predictor Memory dependence prediction Hazards Parallel level Bit Bit - serial Word Instruction Pipelining Scalar Superscalar Task Thread Process Data Vector Memory Multithreading Temporal Simultaneous ( SMT ) ( Hyper - threading ) Speculative ( SpMT ) Preemptive Cooperative Clustered Multi-Thread ( CMT ) Hardware scout Flynn 's taxonomy SISD SIMD ( SWAR ) SIMT MISD MIMD SPMD Addressing mode CPU performance Instructions per second ( IPS ) Instructions per clock ( IPC ) Cycles per instruction ( CPI ) Floating - point operations per second ( FLOPS ) Transactions per second ( TPS ) Synaptic Updates Per Second ( SUPS ) Performance per watt Orders of magnitude ( computing ) Cache performance measurement and metric Core count Single - core processor Multi-core processor Manycore processor Types Central processing unit ( CPU ) GPGPU AI accelerator Vision processing unit ( VPU ) Vector processor Barrel processor Stream processor Digital signal processor ( DSP ) I / O processor / DMA controller Network processor Baseband processor Physics processing unit ( PPU ) Coprocessor Secure cryptoprocessor ASIC FPGA FPOA CPLD Microcontroller Microprocessor Mobile processor Notebook processor Ultra-low - voltage processor Multi-core processor Manycore processor Tile processor Multi-chip module ( MCM ) Chip stack multi-chip modules System on a chip ( SoC ) Multiprocessor system - on - chip ( MPSoC ) Programmable System - on - Chip ( PSoC ) Network on a chip ( NoC ) Components Execution unit ( EU ) Arithmetic logic unit ( ALU ) Address generation unit ( AGU ) Floating - point unit ( FPU ) Load - store unit ( LSU ) Fixed - point unit ( FXU ) Vector unit ( VU ) Branch predictor Branch execution unit ( BEU ) Instruction Decoder Instruction Scheduler Instruction Fetch Unit Instruction Dispatch Unit Instruction Sequencing Unit Unified Reservation Station Barrel shifter Uncore Sum addressed decoder ( SAD ) Front - side bus Back - side bus Northbridge ( computing ) Southbridge ( computing ) Adder ( electronics ) Binary multiplier Binary decoder Address decoder Multiplexer Demultiplexer Registers Cache Memory management unit ( MMU ) Input -- output memory management unit ( IOMMU ) Integrated Memory Controller ( IMC ) Power Management Unit ( PMU ) Translation lookaside buffer ( TLB ) Stack engine Register file Processor register Hardware register Memory buffer register ( MBR ) Program counter Microcode ROM Datapath Control unit Instruction unit Re-order buffer Data buffer Write buffer Coprocessor Electronic switch Electronic circuit Integrated circuit Three - dimensional integrated circuit Boolean circuit Digital circuit Analog circuit Mixed - signal integrated circuit Power management integrated circuit Quantum circuit Logic gate Combinational logic Sequential logic Emitter - coupled logic ( ECL ) Transistor -- transistor logic ( TTL ) Glue logic Quantum gate Gate array Counter ( digital ) Bus ( computing ) Semiconductor device Clock rate CPU multiplier Vision chip Memristor Power management APM ACPI Dynamic frequency scaling Dynamic voltage scaling Clock gating Hardware security Non-executable memory ( NX bit ) Memory Protection Extensions ( Intel MPX ) Intel Secure Key Hardware restriction ( firmware ) Software Guard Extensions ( Intel SGX ) Trusted Execution Technology OmniShield Trusted Platform Module ( TPM ) Secure cryptoprocessor Hardware security module Hengzhi chip Related History of general - purpose CPUs Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=4-bit&oldid=800016943 '' Categories : Data unit Hidden categories : All accuracy disputes Articles with disputed statements from December 2015 Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2014 All articles containing potentially dated statements Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2015 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Català Čeština Deutsch Español فارسی 한국어 Italiano Magyar Bahasa Melayu 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Slovenčina Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 11 September 2017, at 04 : 19. 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Question: how many binary numbers can be created by no more than 4 digits
Answer: 16