Currently, laptops, as well as desktop computers, are equipped with a large number of high-speed data transfer ports – the most common are USB and FireWire (IEEE1394 or iLink). With the development of these peripheral tires, manufacturers have switched to a consistent architecture. To transmit information in a parallel architecture, where bits are transmitted at a time, lines with 8.16 or more wires are needed. In serial communication, “data is sent bit by bit from one computer to another in bi-direction” (“Difference between serial and parallel transmission,” 2016, para. 4).
An example of serial transmission is the connection of devices that do not need a fast data transfer rate, for instance, a modem or mouse. Then, the most common example of parallel communication is the one between a computer and a printer, which can be characterized by transmitting more than one bit simultaneously.
Then, USB communication may be described by transferring the data in blocks. That is, first, it gets the data in a temporary buffer, for instance, 1024kb, and by the time this buffer is getting filled, the USB transmits the data to its destination and continues working. What is more, USB ports may attach up to 127 various peripheral devices that have one connector kind. It should be stated that USB simplifies the process of connecting these devices to a computer to a great extent.
Parallel and serial data transferring have a number of crucial differences. It should be stated that more data is transmitted through the parallel channel at the same time than through the serial channel, but increasing the throughput of the serial connection is much easier than parallel. “Serial transmission is ‘full duplex’ since the sender can send and receive data at the same time” (“Serial & parallel data transmission,” n.d., para. 16). In contrast, parallel communication is half-duplex because data may be either sent or received. Then, the latter has a critical disadvantage – the phase shift of the signal due to which the length of parallel channels, for example, SCSI, is limited. Finally, parallel communication requires more costs if compare with serial transmission.
References
Difference between serial and parallel transmission. (2016). TechDifferences. Web.
Serial & parallel data transmission. (n.d.). Teach Computer Science. Web.