Bus
A bus is effectively a collection of wires that are used to transfer data between different parts of a computer.
Think of it as 32 or 64 wires all next to each other, which can be used to transfer data between the processor and the main memory, or between the processor and hardware controllers, etc.
Types of bus
Section titled “Types of bus”The main 3 buses in a computer are:
- The address bus
- The data bus
- The control bus
Bus width
Section titled “Bus width”The width of a bus is the number of bits it can transfer at a time. For example, if a bus is 64 bits wide, it can transfer 64 bits of data at a time - usually every processor clock cycle.