Bit-serial architecture Bit-serial architecture In digital logic applications, bit-serial architectures send data one bit at a time, along a single wire, in contrast to bit-parallel word architectures, in which data values are sent all bits or a word at once along a group of wires. All computers before 1951, and most of the early massive parallel processing machines used a bit-serial architecture—they were serial computers. Bit-serial architectures were developed for digital signal processing in the 1960s through 1980s, including efficient structures for bit-serial multiplication and accumulation. Often N serial processors will take less FPGA area and have a higher total performance than
Parallel manipulator others, rather than being cumulative. Each actuator must still move within its own degree of freedom, as for a serial robot; however in the parallel robot the off-axis flexibility of a joint is also constrained by the effect of the other chains. It is this closed-loop stiffness that makes the overall parallel manipulator stiff relative to its components, unlike the serial chain that becomes progressively less rigid with more components. This mutual stiffening also permits simple construction: Stewart platform hexapods chains use prismatic joint linear actuators between any-axis universal ball joints. The ball joints are passive: simply free to move,