The distance over which data moves within a computer may vary from a few thousandths of an inch, as is the case within a single IC chip, to as much as several feet along the back plane of the main circuit board. Over such small distances, digital data may be transmitted as direct, two-level electrical signals over simple copper conductors. Except for the fastest computers, circuit designers are not very concerned about the shape of the conductor or the analog characteristics of signal transmission. Frequently, however, data must be sent beyond the local circuitry that constitutes a computer.
In many cases, the distances involved may be enormous. Unfortunately, as the distance between the source of a message and its destination increases, accurate transmission becomes increasingly difficult. This results from the electrical distortion of signals traveling through long conductors, and from noise added to the signal as it propagates through a transmission medium. Although some precautions must be taken for data exchange within a computer, the biggest problems occur when data is transferred to devices outside the computer’s circuitry. In this case, distortion and noise can become so severe that information is lost.
Data Communications concerns the transmission of digital messages to devices external to the message source. “External” devices are generally thought of as being independently powered circuitry that exists beyond the chassis of a computer or other digital message source. As a rule, the maximum permissible transmission rate of a message is directly proportional to signal power, and inversely proportional to channel noise. It is the aim of any communications system to provide the highest possible transmission rate at the lowest possible power and with the least possible noise.
A communications channel is a pathway over which information can be conveyed. It may be defined by a physical wire that connects communicating devices; or by a radio, laser, or other radiated energy source that has no obvious physical presence. Information sent through a communications channel has a source from which the information originates, and a destination to which the information is delivered. Although information originates from a single source, there may be more than one destination, depending upon how many receive stations are linked to the channel and how uch energy the transmitted signal possesses.
In a digital communications channel, the information is represented by individual data bits, which may be encapsulated into multibit message units. A byte, which consists of eight bits, is an example of a message unit that may be conveyed through a digital communications channel. A collection of bytes may itself be grouped into a frame or other higher- level message unit. Such multiple levels of encapsulation facilitate the handling of messages in a complex data communications network. Any communications channel has a direction associated with it: The essage source is the transmitter, and the destination is the receiver.
A channel whose direction of transmission is unchanging is referred to as a simplex channel. For example, a radio station is a simplex channel because it always transmits the signal to its listeners and never allows them to transmit back. A half-duplex channel is a single physical channel in which the direction may be reversed. Messages may flow in two directions, but never at the same time, in a half-duplex system. In a telephone call, one party speaks while the other listens. After a pause, the other party speaks and he first party listens.
Speaking simultaneously results in garbled sound that cannot be understood. A full-duplex channel allows simultaneous message exchange in both directions. It really consists of two simplex channels, a forward channel and a reverse channel, linking the same points. The transmission rate of the reverse channel may be slower if it is used only for flow control of the forward channel. Most digital messages are vastly longer than just a few bits. Because it is neither practical nor economic to transfer all bits of a long message simultaneously, the message is broken into smaller parts nd transmitted sequentially.
Bit-serial transmission conveys a message one bit at a time through a channel. Each bit represents a part of the message. The individual bits are then reassembled at the destination to compose the message. In general, one channel will pass only one bit at a time. Thus, bit-serial transmission is necessary in data communications if only a single channel is available. Bit-serial transmission is normally just called serial transmission and is the chosen communications method in many computer peripherals. Byte-serial transmission conveys eight bits at a time through eight arallel channels.
Although the raw transfer rate is eight times faster than in bit-serial transmission, eight channels are needed, and the cost may be as much as eight times higher to transmit the message. When distances are short, it may nonetheless be both feasible and economic to use parallel channels in return for high data rates. The popular Centronics printer interface is a case where byte-serial transmission is used. As another example, it is common practice to use a 16-bit-wide data bus to transfer data between a microprocessor and memory chips; this provides the equivalent of 16 parallel channels.
On the other hand, when communicating with a timesharing system over a modem, only a single channel is available, and bit-serial transmission is required. The baud rate refers to the signaling rate at which data is sent through a channel and is measured in electrical transitions per second. In the EIA232 serial interface standard, one signal transition, at most, occurs per bit, and the baud rate and bit rate are identical. In this case, a rate of 9600 baud corresponds to a transfer of 9,600 data bits per second with a bit period of 104 microseconds (1/9600 sec. ).
If two electrical ransitions were required for each bit, as is the case in non-return-to- zero coding, then at a rate of 9600 baud, only 4800 bits per second could be conveyed. The channel efficiency is the number of bits of useful information passed through the channel per second. It does not include framing, formatting, and error detecting bits that may be added to the information bits before a message is transmitted, and will always be less than one. The data rate of a channel is often specified by its bit rate (often thought erroneously to be the same as baud rate).
However, an equivalent measure channel capacity is bandwidth. In general, the maximum data rate a channel can support is directly proportional to the channel’s bandwidth and inversely proportional to the channel’s noise level. A communications protocol is an agreed-upon convention that defines the order and meaning of bits in a serial transmission. It may also specify a procedure for exchanging messages. A protocol will define how many data bits compose a message unit, the framing and formatting bits, any error- detecting bits that may be added, and other information that governs control of the communications hardware.
Channel efficiency is determined by he protocol design rather than by digital hardware considerations. Note that there is a tradeoff between channel efficiency and reliability – protocols that provide greater immunity to noise by adding error-detecting and -correcting codes must necessarily become less efficient. Serialized data is not generally sent at a uniform rate through a channel. Instead, there is usually a burst of regularly spaced binary data bits followed by a pause, after which the data flow resumes.
Packets of binary data are sent in this manner, possibly with variable-length pauses between packets, until the message has been fully transmitted. In order for the receiving end to know the proper moment to read individual binary bits from the channel, it must know exactly when a packet begins and how much time elapses between bits. When this timing information is known, the receiver is said to be synchronized with the transmitter, and accurate data transfer becomes possible. Failure to remain synchronized throughout a transmission will cause data to be corrupted or lost.
Two basic techniques are employed to ensure correct synchronization. In synchronous systems, separate channels are used to transmit data and timing information. The timing channel transmits clock pulses to the receiver. Upon receipt of a clock pulse, the receiver reads the data channel and latches the bit value found on the channel at that moment. The data channel is not read again until the next clock pulse arrives. Because the transmitter originates both the data and the timing pulses, the receiver will read the data channel only when told to do so by the transmitter (via the clock pulse), and synchronization is guaranteed.
Techniques exist to merge the timing signal with the data so that only a single channel is required. This is especially useful when ynchronous transmissions are to be sent through a modem. Two methods in which a data signal is self-timed are nonreturn-to-zero and biphase Manchester coding. These both refer to methods for encoding a data stream into an electrical waveform for transmission. In asynchronous systems, a separate timing channel is not used. The transmitter and receiver must be preset in advance to an agreed-upon baud rate.
A very accurate local oscillator within the receiver will then generate an internal clock signal that is equal to the transmitter’s within a fraction of a percent. For the most common serial protocol, data is sent n small packets of 10 or 11 bits, eight of which constitute message information. When the channel is idle, the signal voltage corresponds to a continuous logic ‘1’. A data packet always begins with a logic ‘0’ (the start bit) to signal the receiver that a transmission is starting. The start bit triggers an internal timer in the receiver that generates the needed clock pulses.
Following the start bit, eight bits of message data are sent bit by bit at the agreed upon baud rate. The packet is concluded with a parity bit and stop bit. Privacy is a great concern in data communications. Faxed business etters can be intercepted at will through tapped phone lines or intercepted microwave transmissions without the knowledge of the sender or receiver. To increase the security of this and other data communications, including digitized telephone conversations, the binary codes representing data may be scrambled in such a way that unauthorized interception will produce an indecipherable sequence of characters.
Authorized receive stations will be equipped with a decoder that enables the message to be restored. The process of scrambling, transmitting, and descrambling is known as encryption. Custom integrated circuits have been designed to erform this task and are available at low cost. In some cases, they will be incorporated into the main circuitry of a data communications device and function without operator knowledge. In other cases, an external circuit is used so that the device, and its encrypting/decrypting technique, may be transported easily.
Because of the very high switching rate and relatively low signal strength found on data, address, and other buses within a computer, direct extension of the buses beyond the confines of the main circuit board or plug-in boards would pose serious problems. First, long runs of electrical onductors, either on printed circuit boards or through cables, act like receiving antennas for electrical noise radiated by motors, switches, and electronic circuits. Such noise becomes progressively worse as the length increases, and may eventually impose an unacceptable error rate on the bus signals.
Just a single bit error in transferring an instruction code from memory to a microprocessor chip may cause an invalid instruction to be introduced into the instruction stream, in turn causing the computer to totally cease operation. A second problem involves the distortion of electrical signals as they pass through metallic conductors. Signals that start at the source as clean, rectangular pulses may be received as rounded pulses with ringing at the rising and falling edges. These effects are properties of transmission through metallic conductors, and become more pronounced as the conductor length increases.
To compensate for distortion, signal power must be increased or the transmission rate decreased. Special amplifier circuits are designed for transmitting direct (unmodulated) digital signals through cables. For the relatively short distances between components on a printed circuit board or along a computer back plane, the mplifiers are in simple IC chips that operate from standard +5v power. The normal output voltage from the amplifier for logic ‘1’ is slightly higher than the minimum needed to pass the logic ‘1’ threshold.
Correspondingly for logic ‘0’, it is slightly lower. The difference between the actual output voltage and the threshold value is referred to as the noise margin, and represents the amount of noise voltage that can be added to the signal without creating an error. Data communications through the telephone network can reach any point in the world. The volume of overseas fax transmissions is increasing onstantly, and computer networks that link thousands of businesses, governments, and universities are pervasive.
Transmissions over such distances are not generally accomplished with a direct-wire digital link, but rather with digitally modulated analog carrier signals. This technique makes it possible to use existing analog telephone voice channels for digital data, although at considerably reduced data rates compared to a direct digital link. Transmission of data from your personal computer to a timesharing service over phone lines requires that data signals be converted to audible tones by a modem.
An audio sine wave carrier is used, and, depending on the baud rate and protocol, will encode data by varying the frequency, phase, or amplitude of the carrier. The receiver’s modem accepts the modulated sine wave and extracts the digital data from it. Similar techniques may be used in digital storage devices such as hard disk drives to encode data for storage using an analog medium. In conclusion, data communications are vital to our everyday life. Without them we wouldn’t be able to call our friends and family, do research over the internet, as well as many other things that many of us take for granted everyday.