What parallel comminication is?

Answer 1

To fully explain, I first need to give a bit of background.

In computers, there are two forms of communication based on transmission method:

Serial, and Parralel

Serial communication sends data in a single stream of data, like so:

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

Serial communication has a very high response time, but is limited by how much data it can send per second, since it can only send an electrical signal at a limited height of frequency before it becomes unreliable. This 'response time' is called Latency.

Parrallel communication sends data along multiple simultaneous paths at once time- This may take longer in terms of response time, but can send more overall data- called Bandwidth, or Throughput.

Parralel looks like so:

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

00110101 00110101 00110101 00110101

In the examples above, with serial, you receive 56 bits per second (if we assume that each line is one second) with 111ms of latency. That means it takes 111ms to receive each packet of data, and said data is 8 bits per packet. Thus, 56 bits/s with 111ms latency.

With our parallel diagram, however, you receive 256 bits per second, with 44 bits worth of wait between each packet. Each packet is 6 bytes (48). Thus, it's speed is 256 bits/s with 146ms of latency. It sends MORE data per second, but there's more 'down time' between them.

Depending on the type of data being send or received, either serial or parallel may benefit more. Also the method of transmission, encoding, and efficiency and reliability are key factors.