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The Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) is a character encoding format which is able to encode all of the possible character code points in Unicode. The most prolific is UTF-8, which is a variable-length encoding and uses 8-bit code units, designed for backwards compatibility with ASCII encoding.

Different kinds of UTF encodings include:

• UTF-1 — Retired predecessor of UTF-8, no longer part of the Unicode Standard
• UTF-7 — Uses 7 bits for encoding and was primarily used in email, but is now considered obsolete
• UTF-8 — Uses an 8-bit variable-width encoding in order to maximize compatibility with ASCII
• UTF-16 — 16-bit variable-width encoding
• UTF-32 — 32-bit fixed-width encoding
• UTF-EBCIDC — Uses 8 bits and designed to be compatible with Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC)

Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/976/unicode-transformation-format-utf