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Encyclopedia > Differential signaling

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Low voltage differential signaling. (Discuss)

Differential signaling is a method of transmitting information over pairs of wires (as opposed to single-ended signalling, which transmits information over single wires). Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Low voltage differential signaling, or LVDS, is an electrical signalling system that can run at very high speeds over cheap, twisted-pair copper cables. ... Single-ended signalling is the simplest method of transmitting electrical signals over wires. ...


Differential signaling reduces the noise on a connection by rejecting common-mode interference. Two wires (referred to here as A and B) are routed in parallel, and sometimes twisted together, so that they will receive the same interference. One wire carries the signal, and the other wire carries the inverse of the signal, so that the sum of the voltages on the two wires is always constant. This is a Root page. ... In telecommunication, the term common-mode interference has the following meanings: 1. ... A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, elongated strand of drawn metal. ... Interference of two circular waves - Wavelength (decreasing bottom to top) and Wave centers distance (increasing to the right). ...


At the end of the connection, instead of reading a single signal, the receiving device reads the difference between the two signals. Since the receiver ignores the wires' voltages with respect to ground, small changes in ground potential between transmitter and receiver do not affect the receiver's ability to detect the signal. Also, the system is immune to most types of electrical interference, since any disturbance that lowers the voltage level on A will also lower it on B.


Some communications protocols that use differential signaling include RS-422, RS-485, and USB. EIA-422 (formerly RS-422) is a serial data communication protocol which specifies 4-wire, full-duplex, differential line, multi-drop communications. ... EIA-485 (formerly RS-485 or RS485) is an electrical specification of a two-wire, half-duplex, multipoint serial connection. ... Note: USB may also mean upper sideband in radio. ...


Differential vs. single-ended signaling

A differential signaling system is unlike the more common technique of single-ended signaling, in which the transmitter generates a single voltage that the receiver compares with a fixed reference voltage, both relative to a common ground connection shared by both ends.


The widely used RS-232 system is an example of single-ended signaling, which uses ±12 V to represent a signal, and anything less than ±3 V to represent the lack of a signal. The high voltage levels give the signals some immunity from noise, since few naturally occurring signals can create that sort of voltage. They also have the advantage of requiring only one wire per signal. However, they also have a serious disadvantage: they cannot run at high speeds. The effects of capacitance and inductance, which filter out high-frequency signals, limit the speed. Large voltage swings driving long cables also require significant power from the transmitting end. This problem can be reduced by using smaller voltages, but then the chance of mistaking random environmental noise for a signal becomes much more of a problem. Another difficulty is the electromagnetic interference that can be generated by a single-ended signaling system which attempts to operate at high speed. RS-232 (also referred to as EIA RS-232C or V.24) is a standard for serial binary data interchange between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data communication equipment). ... // Definition Capacitance is a measure of the amount of electric charge stored (or separated) for a given electric potential. ... // Definition Inductance is a measure of the amount of magnetic flux produced for a given electric current. ...


Differential signaling uses the difference in voltage between two wires to signal information.


The differential signalling system also has a low susceptibility to noise, because distant noise sources tend to add the same amount of voltage (called common-mode noise) to both wires, so the difference between the voltages remains the same. Manufacturers can further reduce noise by twisting the two wires of a pair together (as in Cat-3 Ethernet cables), so that any noise induced in one half-twist tends to cancel the noise induced in the neighboring half-twist. Category 3 cable, commonly known as Cat-3, is an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable designed to reliably carry data up to 10 Mbit/s, with a possible bandwidth of 16 MHz. ... Ethernet is a frame-based computer networking technology for local area networks (LANs). ...


Other examples include differential ECL, PECL, LVPECL, RS-422 and RS-485. Low voltage differential signaling is currently the only scheme that combines low power dissipation with high speed. ECL may stand for: Emitter Coupled Logic Embeddable Common Lisp ... Positive Emitter Coupled Logic, or PECL, is a further development of the emitter coupled logic (ECL) technology and requires a positive 5V supply instead of a negative -5V supply. ... Low Voltage Positive Emitter Coupled Logic, or LVPECL, is a power optimized version of the Positive Emitter Coupled Logic (PECL) technology, requiring a positive 3. ... EIA-422 (formerly RS-422) is a serial data communication protocol which specifies 4-wire, full-duplex, differential line, multi-drop communications. ... EIA-485 (formerly RS-485 or RS485) is an electrical specification of a two-wire, half-duplex, multipoint serial connection. ... Low voltage differential signaling, or LVDS, is an electrical signalling system that can run at very high speeds over cheap, twisted-pair copper cables. ...


High-voltage differential signaling

High-voltage differential (HVD) signaling uses high-voltage signals, as opposed to low-voltage differential signaling (see LVDS). In computer electronics, "high voltage" normally means 5 volts or more. International danger high voltage symbol. ... Low voltage differential signaling, or LVDS, is an electrical signalling system that can run at very high speeds over cheap, twisted-pair copper cables. ... An illustration of a modern personal computer. ...


Differential circuitry normally allows longer cables than single-ended signaling. This is because the signal on the wires is received not as the difference between a signal wire and a ground wire, but as the difference between two wires not related to ground (hence the term "differential"). Since any interference to the signals coming from external sources is likely to influence the two wires by an equal amount, leading to a 'common mode' signal which is removed by the receiver, the maximum cable length is increased compared with single-ended circuitry.


SCSI-1 variations included a high voltage differential (HVD) implementation whose maximum cable length was many times that of the single-ended version. SCSI equipment for example allows a maximum total cable length of 25 meters using HVD, while single-ended SCSI allows a maximum cable length of 1.5 to 6 meters, depending on bus speed. Note that LVD versions of SCSI allow less than 25 m cable length not because of the lower voltage, but because these SCSI standards allow much higher speeds than the older HVD SCSI. SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, and is a standard interface and command set for transferring data between devices on both internal and external computer buses. ...


See also


  Results from FactBites:
 
Differential signaling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (996 words)
Differential signaling reduces the noise on a connection by rejecting common-mode interference.
A differential signaling system is unlike the more common technique of single-ended signaling, in which the transmitter generates a single voltage that the receiver compares with a fixed reference voltage, both relative to a common ground connection shared by both ends.
This is because the signal on the wires is received not as the difference between a signal wire and a ground wire, but as the difference between two wires not related to ground (hence the term "differential").
Low voltage differential signaling (528 words)
In the past most signalling schemes relied on detecting the presence of a signal in a single wire, compared to ground.
Prior to that point it could signal faster than the computers it was running in, and the need to run twice as many wires for the same amount of data was too high a price to pay.
Yet there was widespread interest in it for multimedia and supercomputer users, both of whom needed to move large amounts of data over links several meters long, from a disk drive to a workstation for instance.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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