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Serial Communicationo

Serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time over a channel. It is used for long-haul communication and most computer networks due to lower costs compared to parallel communication. Examples of serial communication include RS-232, USB, Ethernet, and fiber optic networks.

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38 views3 pages

Serial Communicationo

Serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time over a channel. It is used for long-haul communication and most computer networks due to lower costs compared to parallel communication. Examples of serial communication include RS-232, USB, Ethernet, and fiber optic networks.

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jcvoscrib
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Serial communication

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In telecommunication and computer science, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time,
sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several
bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel channels.
Serial communication is used for all long-haul communication and most computer networks, where the cost of cable and
synchronization difficulties make parallel communication impractical. Serial computer buses are becoming more common
even at shorter distances, as improved signal integrity and transmission speeds in newer serial technologies have begun to
outweigh the parallel bus's advantage of simplicity (no need for serializer and deserializer, or SerDes) and to outstrip its
disadvantages (clock skew, interconnect density). The migration from PCI to PCI Express is an example.

Contents
1 Cables that carry serial data
2 Serial buses
3 Serial versus parallel
4 Examples of serial communication architectures
5 See also
6 External links

Cables that carry serial data


Main article: data cable
Many serial communication systems were originally designed to transfer data over relatively large distances through some
sort of data cable.
The term "serial" most often refers to the RS232 port on the back of the original IBM PC, often called "the" serial port, and
"the" serial cable designed to plug into it, and the many devices designed to be compatible with it.
Practically all long-distance communication transmits data one bit at a time, rather than in parallel, because it reduces the
cost of the cable. The cables that carry this data (other than "the" serial cable) and the computer ports they plug into are
usually referred to with a more specific name, to reduce confusion.
Keyboard and mouse cables and ports are almost invariably serial -- such as PS/2 port and Apple Desktop Bus and USB.
The cables that carry digital video are almost invariably serial -- such as coax cable plugged into a HD-SDI port, a webcam
plugged into a USB port or Firewire port, Ethernet cable connecting an IP camera to a Power over Ethernet port, FPDLink, etc.
Other such cables and ports, transmitting data one bit at a time, include Serial ATA, Serial SCSI, Ethernet cable plugged
into Ethernet ports, the Display Data Channel using previously reserved pins of the VGA connector or the DVI port or the
HDMI port.

Serial buses
Many communication systems were generally originally designed to connect two integrated circuits on the same printed
circuit board, connected by signal traces on that board (rather than external cables).

Integrated circuits are more expensive when they have more pins. To reduce the number of pins in a package, many ICs use
a serial bus to transfer data when speed is not important. Some examples of such low-cost serial buses include SPI, IC,
UNI/O, and 1-Wire.

Serial versus parallel


The communication links across which computersor parts of computerstalk to one another may be either serial or
parallel. A parallel link transmits several streams of data simultaneously along multiple channels (e.g., wires, printed circuit
tracks, or optical fibres); a serial link transmits a single stream of data.
Although a serial link may seem inferior to a parallel one, since it can transmit less data per clock cycle, it is often the case
that serial links can be clocked considerably faster than parallel links in order to achieve a higher data rate. A number of
factors allow serial to be clocked at a higher rate:
Clock skew between different channels is not an issue (for unclocked asynchronous serial communication links).
A serial connection requires fewer interconnecting cables (e.g., wires/fibres) and hence occupies less space. The
extra space allows for better isolation of the channel from its surroundings.
Crosstalk is less of an issue, because there are fewer conductors in proximity.
In many cases, serial is a better option because it is cheaper to implement. Many ICs have serial interfaces, as opposed to
parallel ones, so that they have fewer pins and are therefore less expensive.

Examples of serial communication architectures


Morse code telegraphy
RS-232 (low-speed, implemented by serial ports)
RS-422
RS-423
RS-485
IC
SPI
ARINC 818 Avionics Digital Video Bus
Atari SIO (Joe Decuir credits his work on Atari SIO as the basis of USB)
Universal Serial Bus (moderate-speed, for connecting peripherals to computers)
FireWire
Ethernet
Fibre Channel (high-speed, for connecting computers to mass storage devices)
InfiniBand (very high speed, broadly comparable in scope to PCI)
MIDI control of electronic musical instruments
DMX512 control of theatrical lighting
SDI-12 industrial sensor protocol
CoaXPress industrial camera protocol over Coax
Serial Attached SCSI
Serial ATA
SpaceWire Spacecraft communication network
HyperTransport
PCI Express
SONET and SDH (high speed telecommunication over optical fibers)
T-1, E-1 and variants (high speed telecommunication over copper pairs)
MIL-STD-1553A/B

See also

Computer bus
List of device bandwidths
Comparison of synchronous and asynchronous signalling
Asynchronous serial communication
Synchronous serial communication
Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)
8N1
Data transmission
Federal Standard 1037C
MIL-STD-188
Serial Peripheral Interface Bus
High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC)
Serial port

External links
Serial Interface Tutorial for Robotics (http://www.societyofrobots.com/microcontroller_uart.shtml) (contains many
practical examples)
Serial interfaces listing (with pinouts) (http://pinouts.ru/pin_SerialPorts.shtml)
Wiki: Serial Ports (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SerialPorts)
Visual studio 2008 coding for Serial communication (http://www.thaiio.com/prog-cgi/VBnetSerialPort.htm)
Introduction to IC and SPI protocols (http://www.byteparadigm.com/kb/article/AA-00255)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serial_communication&oldid=593845907"
Categories: Serial buses Physical layer protocols
This page was last modified on 4 February 2014 at 05:46.
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