Solaris™ Operating Environment Boot Camp

Synchronous versus Asynchronous

The two methods of serial data transmission are synchronous and asynchronous. The most common devices are asynchronous, which is the type we will look at here.

Synchronous transmissions use an accurate clock signal synchronized between the two ends. Data is sent or expected on every clock pulse, with errors being raised if either no data is received on a pulse or data is received between the pulses (Figure 14.1). The important feature about this method is that the clock signal must be accurate and synchronized between the two ends.

Figure 14.1. Synchronous serial transmission.

Asynchronous transmissions, on the ...