Lecture-66

Asynchronous Serial Data Communication

A serial data signal is divided into time intervals called bit times
as shown in fig.12.5. During each bit time interval (TB), the signal is
either a ‘0’ or’1’; it can change logic levels only at the start of a new bit
time interval.

1
Serial
Data
0
TB TB TB TB TB TB time

Fig.12.5 Serial Data Line during Serial Communication

The rate at which serial transmission takes place is called the Baud
Rate. It is essentially equal to the number of bits of information that
are transmitted per second. Since ‘1’ bit is transmitted for a time
interval equal to 1 bit time, TB, the baud rate is given by
1 1
Baud Rate= = (Bits/ second)
Bit Time TB
For example, in a teletypewriter (TTY) system, TB is 9.09 msec. This
gives a baud rate of 110 bits/sec. Commonly used baud rates are
110, 150, 300, 600, 900,1200, 2400, 4800, 9600,13.8k,14.4k,19.2k,
38.4k, 57.8k.
When asynchronous serial data are transmitted between two
devices such as CRT terminal & microprocessor, a standard format is
used to transmit a single data character as shown in fig.12.6. This
format consists of three or four parts:
 1) A START bit, which is always logic ‘0’ called space.
2) Five to eight data bits, representing the actual information being
transmitted. The LSB are normally transmitted first.
3) An optional priority bit for error detection capability. If the parity
bit is included, either odd or even parity can be used.
4) 1, 1½ or 2 stop bits which are always 1s. 1½ (one and half stop
bits) would be represented as a 1 level, which lasts for 1½ bit
time. Most frequently, there will be 2 STOP bits.
Mark/ Idle
(5 to8 data bits)
State
1
Optinal
Serial START
D5
Bit
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D6 D7 Parity Stop Bit(s)
Data Bit
0
TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB

time

Fig.12.6 Serial Data Line to Transmit a Character during Asynchronous

Serial Communication
For a given system, the number of data bits, the optional parity
bit and the number of STOP bits are fixed by the design. Fig.12.7
shows an example of a serial data word that uses 7 data bits, an even
parity bit and 2 STOP bits. The 7 data bits are the ASCII code to
alpha numeric character ‘K’ being transmitted.
Mark/ Idle (7 data bits for character 'K')
State
1
Serial START Even Two
Bit
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 Parity Stop Bit(s)
Data Bit
0
TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB TB

time

Fig.12.7 Serial Data Line to Transmit Character ‘K’ in Asynchronous Mode

The complete serial data word counting begins with a START bit of 0.
The signal line is assumed to be transmitting a constant HIGH level
prior to the START bit. This is called mark state or idle state.
Whenever a data is not being transmitted, the signal line is always in
mark state. Thus, the beginning of each data character is
characterized by a 1 to 0 transmission when the START bit occurs.
Here the START bit is followed by 7 bits of data, beginning with LSB
and ending with MSB. These the actual data being transmitted here
are read as 1001 011 which happens to be the ASCII code for ‘K’.
The data bits are followed by an even parity bit; in this case it is ‘0’.
Since 7 data bits contain an even number of 1s. The parity bit is
followed by 2 STOP bits, which are always 1s.
Even though the receiver and transmitter in an asynchronous
data transfer are not synchronized with respect to the time at which a
character is transmitted, once the transmitter starts to send a
character, the receiver synchronizes itself with the bit times of the
character in order to sample them at the correct time. The baud rate
of the transmitter & receiver are set to the same value. A start bit
synchronizes transmitter and receiver. The receiver synchronizes its
operation with the transmitter on the 1 to 0 transition of the data line.
It waits one half a bit time, checks the input to make sure it is still
logic 0 – and therefore a valid start bit - and begins sampling the data
line at intervals equal to one bit time. The data line is sampled at the
centre of each transmitted bit. This eliminates errors that might
occurs if sampling takes place at the beginning of each bit time, since
the leading or trailing edges of the transmission on the data line are
distorted in transmission. It then samples the parity bit & stop bits.
The actual information, which the transmitter is sending to the
receiver, is contained in the data bits. The data bits of each
transmitted word are formed by the START & STOP bits. The
receiver uses these framing bits as a means for determining which
bits are the data bits.

Synchronous Serial Data Transmission:

Asynchronous serial data transmission in the most widely used
type of serial communication. In this transmission each character
needs 1 start bit, 2 stops bit and may be one parity bit in addition to
data bits to separate the characters. These extra bits increase the
amount of time required to transmit a single character.
Synchronous serial data communication does not use the extra
START & STOP bits. Data words are transmitted continuously one
after the other with no indication of character boundaries. The
synchronization between the receiver and transmitting is
accomplished by transmitting a special synchronizing word or
character after a specific number of data words. The synchronizing
character is an 8-bit character that would not normally appear in a
stream of data words. A commonly used sync character is 000101102
= 1616 which is the ASCII code for the synchronizing character SYN.
A typical synchronizing transmission sequence is shown in fig.12.8.

Sync. Sync. Sync. Sync. DATA Sync. DATA

DATA DATA
Character Character Character Character Character

Fig.12.8 Typical Sequence of Data Transmitted in Synchronous Mode

 In case of asynchronous data communication, each character is
transmitted in a frame with START and STOP bits but in synchronous
communication there is no START or STOP bit. The information
consisting of data or synchronizing characters are transmitted
continually as a stream of logic ‘1’ and logic ‘0’. In the beginning of
data transmission, only synchronizing characters are transmitted and
only after that the actual data transmission begins. Therefore, to
synchronize the transmitter with the starting of a character, the
receiver operates in a hunt mode. Initially all the bits of the data
received are set ‘1’. Then the data line is sampled and the received
bit is put on MSB shifting rest of the bits towards right. The data so
formed is compared with the synchronizing character. If the data is
different than synchronizing character, the data line is again sampled
and the new data is formed and compared with the synchronizing
character. In this way, the receiver operated in hunt mode - making
bit by bit comparison of the input stream with the value of the
synchronizing character until it detects the synchronizing character.
Once the desired character is detected, the receiver treats each
subsequent group of n-bits as a character. The transmitter continues
to send synchronizing characters to maintain the synchronization,
even if the sources of data character do not have data ready for
transmission. In this case the transmitter sends the synchronizing
character continuously and thus the time interval between two
characters is fixed. The clocks in the transmitter and receiver operate
at exactly the same frequently and must be very stable to maintain
synchronization for a long period of time. Typically, thousands of
blocks if character can be sent without re-synchronizing the receiver.
In case of asynchronous communication, the data bits are sampled in
the middle of the data bit to ensure that the data received is correct
and this is implemented by giving a delay of TB/2 after the START
pulse is detected. In case of synchronous communication, it is
implemented with the help of common clock signal. The transmitted
transmits the data bits on TxD line at the falling edge of clock signal
and the receiver samples the RxD line on the rising edge of clock
signal. Thus the data bits are sampled in the middle of each bit. In
this case, the baud rate is same as the frequency of clock signal.
It is possible sometimes that the special SYN character may be
present in the data itself, thus making it difficult to differentiate data
with the synchronizing character. In such cases, instead of single
synchronizing character, two synchronizing characters SYN1 and
SYN2, are transmitted together. The synchronization is also
established when both the characters were detected together.
Synchronous communication is typically used for high speed transfer
of large block of data. This is because only 2% of the transmitted data
is taken up by the synchronizing characters as compared to 20% for
asynchronous communication.