Data Transmission – Parallel vs.

Serial
Data transmission refers to the process of transferring data between two or more digital devices.
Data is transmitted from one device to another in analog or digital format. Basically, data
transmission enables devices or components within devices to speak to each other.

Serial transmission
When data is sent or received using serial data transmission, the data bits are organized in a
specific order, since they can only be sent one after another. The order of the data bits is
important as it dictates how the transmission is organized when it is received. It is viewed as
a reliable data transmission method because a data bit is only sent if the previous data bit
has already been received.

Example of Serial Data Transmission

Serial transmission has two classifications: asynchronous and synchronous.

There are two types of serial transmission-synchronous and asynchronous both these
transmissions use 'Bit synchronization'

Bit Synchronization is a function that is required to determine when the beginning and end of
the data transmission occurs.

Bit synchronization helps the receiving computer to know when data begin and end during a
transmission. Therefore bit synchronization provides timing control.

Asynchronous Transmission

• Asynchronous transmission sends only one character at a time where a character is either a
letter of the alphabet or number or control character i.e. it sends one byte of data at a time.

• Bit synchronization between two devices is made possible using start bit and stop bit.

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• Start bit indicates the beginning of data i.e. alerts the receiver to the arrival of new group of
bits. A start bit usually 0 is added to the beginning of each byte.

• Stop bit indicates the end of data i.e. to let the receiver know that byte is finished, one or
more additional bits are appended to the end of the byte. These bits, usually 1s are called stop
bits.

• Addition of start and stop increase the number of data bits. Hence more bandwidth is
consumed in asynchronous transmission.

• There is idle time between the transmissions of different data bytes. This idle time is also
known as Gap

• The gap or idle time can be of varying intervals. This mechanism is called Asynchronous,
because at byte level sender and receiver need not to be synchronized. But within each byte,
receiver must be synchronized with the incoming bit stream.

Advantages of Asynchronous transmission

1. This method of data transmission is cheaper in cost as compared to synchronous e.g. If
lines are short, asynchronous transmission is better, because line cost would be low and idle
time will not be expensive.
2. In this approach each individual character is complete in itself, therefore if character is
corrupted during transmission, its successor and predecessor character will not be affected.
3. It is possible to transmit signals from sources having different bit rates.
4. The transmission can start as soon as data byte to be transmitted becomes available.
5. Moreover, this mode of data transmission in easy to implement.

Disadvantages of asynchronous transmission

1. This method is less efficient and slower than synchronous transmission due to the
overhead of extra bits and insertion of gaps into bit stream.
2. Successful transmission inevitably depends on the recognition of the start bits. These bits
can be missed or corrupted.

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Synchronous Transmission
• Synchronous transmission does not use start and stop bits.

• In this method bit stream is combined into longer frames that may contain multiple
bytes.

• There is no gap between the various bytes in the data stream.

• In the absence of start & stop bits, bit synchronization is established between sender &
receiver by 'timing' the transmission of each bit.

• Since the various bytes are placed on the link without any gap, it is the responsibility of
receiver to separate the bit stream into bytes so as to reconstruct the original
information.

• In order to receive the data error free, the receiver and sender operates at the same
clock frequency.

Application of Synchronous transmission

• Synchronous transmission is used for high speed communication between computers.

Advantage of Synchronous transmission

1. This method is faster as compared to asynchronous as there are no extra bits (start bit
& stop bit) and also there is no gap between the individual data bytes.

Disadvantages of Synchronous transmission

1. It is costly as compared to asynchronous method. It requires local buffer storage at the

two ends of line to assemble blocks and it also requires accurately synchronized clocks at
both ends. This lead to increase in the cost.

2. The sender and receiver have to operate at the same clock frequency. This requires
proper synchronization which makes the system complicated.

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 Parallel transmission
When data is sent using parallel data transmission, multiple data bits are transmitted over
multiple channels at the same time. This means that data can be sent much faster than
using serial transmission methods.
Within a computing or communication device, the distances between different subunits are
too short. Thus, it is normal practice to transfer data between subunits using a separate wire
to carry each bit of data. There are multiple wires connecting each sub-unit and data is
exchanged using a parallel transfer mode. This mode of operation results in minimal delays
in transferring each word.
 In parallel transmission, all the bits of data are transmitted simultaneously on
separate communication lines.
• In order to transmit n bits, n wires or lines are used. Thus each bit has its own line.

• All n bits of one group are transmitted with each clock pulse from one device to
another i.e. multiple bits are sent with each clock pulse.

• Parallel transmission is used for short distance communication.

• As shown in the fig, eight separate wires are used to transmit 8 bit data from sender
to receiver.

Advantages
Serial transmission

 It is cost-effective
 It is appropriate for long-distance communication.
 More reliable

Parallel transmission

 Transmits data at a higher speed.

 Suits better for short-distance communication.
 Set of bits are transferred simultaneously.

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Disadvantages
Serial transmission

 Data transmission rate is low.

 Throughput relies on the bit rate.

Parallel transmission

 It is a costly transmission system.

 In order to transmit the data over long ranges, the thickness of the wire has to be increased to
diminish signal degradation.
 There are multiple communication channels required.

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Transmission Modes in Computer Networks
Transmission mode refers to the mechanism of transferring of data between two devices connected
over a network. It is also called Communication Mode. These modes direct the direction of flow of
information. There are three types of transmission modes. They are:

1. Simplex Mode
2. Half duplex Mode
3. Full duplex Mode

SIMPLEX Mode
In this type of transmission mode, data can be sent only in one direction i.e. communication is
unidirectional. We cannot send a message back to the sender. Unidirectional communication is done
in Simplex Systems where we just need to send a command/signal, and do not expect any response
back.
Examples of simplex Mode are loudspeakers, television broadcasting, television and remote,
keyboard and monitor etc.

HALF DUPLEX Mode

Half-duplex data transmission means that data can be transmitted in both directions on a signal
carrier, but not at the same time.
For example, on a local area network using a technology that has half-duplex transmission, one
workstation can send data on the line and then immediately receive data on the line from the same
direction in which data was just transmitted. Hence half-duplex transmission implies a bidirectional
line (one that can carry data in both directions) but data can be sent in only one direction at a time.
Example of half duplex is a walkie- talkie in which message is sent one at a time but messages are
sent in both the directions.

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FULL DUPLEX Mode
In full duplex system we can send data in both the directions as it is bidirectional at the same time in
other words, data can be sent in both directions simultaneously.
Example of Full Duplex is a Telephone Network in which there is communication between two
persons by a telephone line, using which both can talk and listen at the same time.

In full duplex system there can be two lines one for sending the data and the other for receiving
data.

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Synchronous and Asynchronous Transmission
Asynchronous Transmission
It is named Asynchronous transmission because the timing of a signal is unimportant. In this
transmission process transmitted information is encoded with start and stop bits, specifying
the beginning and end of each character. As long as some pattern is followed, the receiving
device can retrieve the information without regard to which it is sent.
Patterns are based on grouping the bit streams into a byte usually eight bits is sent along
with the link as a unit. The sender sends each group of data independently, relaying it to the
link whenever ready, without regard to a timer.
• The receiver cannot use timing to predict the arrival time of the next group so that
synchronizing pulse is required. To notify the receiving system to the arrival of a new
group, therefore, an extra bit is added to the beginning of each byte.
• This 0s bit is referred to as the start bit. Telling the receiver that the byte is finished,
one or more additional bits are appended to the end of the byte. This is bit is called a
stop bit.
• By this method, each byte is increased in size to at least 10 bits, of which 8 are
information and two or more are signals to the receiver.
• Also, the transmission of each byte may gap of varying duration. This gap between
information can be represented either by an idle channel or by a stream of additional
stop bits.
• The bits of a byte that is 8 bits are transmitted simultaneously on separate wires. If
two devices are close together computer or printer so the communication within the
computer.
Examples of Asynchronous Transmission: emails, forums, letters, radios and televisions.

This figure shows the schematic illustration of asynchronous transmission. In this example,
the start bits are 0s and the stop bits are 1s and the gap is represented by an idle line rather
than by additional stop bits.

In this diagram, the ASCII character would be transmitted using 10 bits. In this transmission
scheme "0100 0001" changes into "1 0100 0001 0". The extra bits, depending on the parity
bit, at the start and end of the data transmission.
This starts and a stops bit tells the receiver that character is coming and also the character
has ended.
This scheme of transmission is used when data are transmitted irregularly as opposed to in a
solid stream.

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Characteristics of asynchronous communication are as follows:
• Extra bits are added to the start and end of the character stream.
• Between two characters there may exist gaps or spaces.
• The idle time is not constant between bytes as only one byte is sent at a time.
• The reception of data is done at different clock frequencies.
Advantages:
• Synchronization between devices is not necessary.
• It is a low-cost scheme.
Disadvantages:
• Low transmission due to the use of 'start' and 'stop' bits and gaps between data
chunks.
• Timing errors take place.
Synchronous Transmission

The bit streams are combined into longer "frames" in synchronous transmission, which may
contain multiple bytes. Each byte, however, is introduced onto the transmission link without
a gap between it and the next one.

It is left to the receiver to separate the bitstreams into bytes for decoding purposes.

 In other words, data or information is transmitted in the form of an unbroken string

of 1s and 0s, and the receiver separates that string into the bytes or characters, it
needs to reconstruct the information.
 In this transmission, we send bits one after another without start/stop bits or gaps.
Grouping of bits is the receiver's responsibility.

Examples of Synchronous Transmission are chat rooms, video conferencing, telephonic

conversations, face-to-face interactions, etc.

Characteristics of Synchronous Transmission:

 Between transmitted characters, there are no spaces.

 Timing is very important as the accuracy of the received information is completely
dependent on the ability of the receiving device to keep an accurate count of the bits
as they come in.
 Special ‘syn’ characters are sent before the data being sent.
 These syn characters are placed between chunks of data for timing functions.

Advantages:

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  Data speed is much higher because of no extra bits at the sending end and at the
receiving end.
 Timing errors are reduced due to syn.
 More useful for high-speed applications.

Disadvantages:

 Timing is responsible for the accuracy of data

 It is required that transmitter and receiver be properly synchronized

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Ms. Kanika Kohli