nibble

A nibble, quadbit or half-byte is a unit of information consisting of four bits.

Binary units and their valences

A nibble can also comprise the first four or second four bits of a byte. As examples for the use of a nibble the 4B5B coding can be mentioned or the coding in modems to increase the transmission speed.

With a nibble `2^4`, i.e. 16 different states can be represented digitally, whereby the valence of the hexadecimal system can be mapped. If two bits are combined to a group, one speaks of a dibit, with three bits of a tribit and with 8 bits of a byte.