High Speed Digital Serial Links: Theory and Practice

Shing Kong
Senior Staff Engineer
Silicon Image, Inc.

Abstract:

Traditional computer I/O bus such as SCSI and PCI are parallel transport that uses multiple electrical wires to send groups of bits concurrently. Due to electrical and clocking considerations, parallel transmission is limited in both speed and distance. Digital serial links on the other hand, are serial transport that transmits data one bit at a time. This enables data to be transmitted over longer distance and at a much faster rate. Digital serial links can be divided into three categories: (1) Synchronous, (2) Asynchronous, and (3) Plesiochronous. This talk will explain what these three categories are and how they may affect future computing.