The emergence and adoption of serial I/O technologies such
as multi-gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, Serial-attached SCSI
(SAS), Serial ATA (SATA), and PCI Express represents a fundamental
shift in computer designs. In contrast to parallel I/O,
which transmits multiple data bits simultaneously, serial I/O
transmits data one bit at a time at very high speeds. Serial 110
buffer design is now feasible because of new serialize / deserializer
(SerDes) technologies. SerDes technologies convert
wide parallel data streams and associated clock data to a serial
low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) bit stream that is
transmitted then deserialized at its destination.