12-bit computing
Possibly the best-known 12-bit CPU is the PDP-8 and its relatives, such as the Intersil 6100 microprocessor produced in various incarnations from August 1963 to mid-1990. Many analog to digital converters have a 12-bit resolution. Some PIC microcontrollers use a 12-bit word size.
12 binary digits, or 3 nibbles, have 4096 distinct combinations. Hence, a microprocessor with 12-bit memory addresses can directly access 4096 words of word-addressable memory. At a time when six-bit character codes were common a 12-bit word, which could hold two characters, was a convenient size. IBM System/360 instruction formats use a 12-bit displacement field which, added to the contents of a base register, can address 4096 bytes of memory.
