ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on digital communications techniques used in PIC interfacing with I/O devices, integrated circuits, and other forms of programmable logic. Popular lore regards serial communications as slower than parallel communications, but with modern-day technologies this is often not the case, as serial techniques often match or even excel parallel methods in speed and performance. Many communications standards were created with other interface and hardware requirements in mind and are not ideally suited for PIC applications. The chapter discusses serial and parallel communications at their most essential level. In the general literature, communications concerns often focus on transmission speeds, system performance, and minimum processing time. In a typical PIC application, communication functions are used to upload stored data to a PC, sometimes called data-logging, or to receive small data sets or commands from a host machine. In this context there are no major concerns regarding super-fast transmission rates or maximum performance.
