8-bit microcontroller.

[cwjcwjcwj]

8 bit microcontroller means

I am a beginner in this field. Could anyone tell me what is '8-bit' means? Is that mean the microcontroller can handle 8-bit in a second?

 

[arthur0]

8 bit means

I am a beginner in this field. Could anyone tell me what is '8-bit' means? Is that mean the microcontroller can handle 8-bit in a second?

No. It means that it can handle (access and operate on) an 8-bit data at a time.
It follows that the internal data bus, the ALU (arithmetic logic unit), internal registers and memory are all 8-bit wide.
Now there are rare exceptions from the above, but this is what the “original” meaning of N-bit was.

Arthur

 

[cwjcwjcwj]

8 bit microcontroller means

If i want to write my code in fixed-point format, does it mean i have to use Q8,Q0.8,Q7.1 or etc?

 

[arthur0]

If i want to write my code in fixed-point format, does it mean i have to use Q8,Q0.8,Q7.1 or etc?

I don’t know what do you mean by "use Q8,Q0.8,Q7.1 or etc".
But whenever talking about writing code (regardless of what), you’ll need to first specify how (language and compiler) and where (chosen HW platform, uC, uP etc.).

When choosing a higher-level programming language, you don’t usually care about internal bus width and stuff like that. You just do your thing and the compiler takes care of the underlying HW details. You can even write floating point expressions and the good compiler will invoke the proper libraries that emulate a floating-point hardware without your noticing (except maybe for the increase in program size and execution time).

If this is not the answer you expected, rephrase your question a little, use more words and specify the how and where above so we can have a chance at it.

Arthur

 

[SatyajitC]

8 bit microcontroller means CPU or ALU can process 8 bit data at a time. Means it has to take 8 bit data from memory (which it has to process). Thus each location in memory is 8 bit and data bus is also 8 bit. Registers in RAM has to be 8 bit for temporary storage of results.