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Serial and Parallel data transmission

The need to provide data transfer between a computer and a remote terminal has led to the development of serial communication.

Serial data transmission implies transfer data transfer bit by bit on the single (serial) communication line .

In case of serial transmission data is sent in a serial form i.e. bit by bit on a single line. Also, the cost of communication hardware is considerable reduced since only a single wire or channel is require for the serial bit transmission. Serial data transmission is slow as compared to parallel transmission.

However, parallel data transmission is less common but faster than serial transmission. Most data are organized into 8 bit bytes. In some computers, data are further organized into multiple bits called half words, full words. Accordingly data is transferred some times a byte or word at a time on multiple wires with each wire carrying individual data bits. Thus transmitting all bits of a given data byte or word at the same time is known as parallel data transmission.

Parallel transmission is used primarily for transferring data between devices at the same site. For eg : communication between a computer and printer is most often parallel, so that entire byte can be transferred in one operation.

Synchronous Communication

In Synchronous communication scheme, after a fixed number of data bytes a special bit pattern is send called SYNC by the sending end.

Data transmission take place without any gap between two adjacent characters., however data is send block by block. A block is a continuous steam of characters or data bit pattern coming at a fixed speed. You will find a Sync bit pattern between any two blocks of data and hence the data transmission is synchronized.

Synchronous communication is used generally when two computers are communicating to each other at a high speed or a buffered terminal is communicating to the computer.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Synchronous Communication

Main advantage of Synchronous data communication is the high speed. The synchronous communications required high-speed peripherals/devices and a good-quality, high brandwidth communication channel.

The disadvantage include the possible in accuracy. Because when a receiver goes out of Synchronization, loosing tracks of where individual characters begin and end. Correction of errors takes additional time.

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