Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Gaudet who wrote (19559)	5/1/1999 7:02:00 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93625

<Could you explain the rising and falling edges of the clock in non-technical terms?> Sure. The clock is nothing more than a electronic wave that swings up and down in voltage levels. Every time the clock signal swings up, that's called a "rising edge." Every time the clock signal swings down, that's called a "falling edge." When you send a chunk of data down the pins of an interface, you have to tell the receiver when to latch the data, or "take a snapshot" of the data pins. Otherwise, the receiver won't be able to tell the difference between real chunks of data and the "noise" in-between each chunk of data. Traditionally, the rising edge of the clock signal is used to tell the receiver "OK, this is the exact point where data on the pins is valid." The falling edge isn't used. (Well, that's not exactly true; the falling edge is used, but it's used not to latch data, but to "reset" the latches for the next chunk of data.) What Rambus does is latch data not only on the rising edge of the clock, but also at the falling edge. Thus, the chunks of data coming down the pins of the interface are arriving twice as fast, while the clock stays at the same speed. That's why the clock can run at 400 MHz, but the data comes in at an effective transfer rate of 800 MHz. Tenchusatsu