What is Latency? and Why it does matter?
In the first topic of IP-core series, let us talk about the basic need behind the technology in this decade and how does it important to our life. Latency time is a good topic to start with. You may curious that what exactly is the latency time and why it is so important. This article might make it more tangible to you.
What is Latency time?
In general meaning, latency means “the fact of being present but needing particular conditions to become active, obvious, or completely developed” (ref1.). If the general meaning is not clear, let see the communication between two persons as an example. Mr. A said “hello” to Mr. B. The latency is a period of time when Mr. A is thinking to say but his mouth is not move until the word “hello” goes out of his mouth. This is the latency time of command from brain to mouth.
In computer meaning, latency means “the delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer” (ref2.). For example, when user click to zoom image but the image does not zoom yet, the time between user clicking to zoom at the picture and the zooming image appear.
To sum up, latency is the duration time between commands has been called until the beginning of execution of its command.
Why latency time is matter?
As you already may know what the latency time is, now, let us look at the next important question. Why latency time has become an important factor in our daily life. At first you might see in as insignificant issue. However, when it comes to Fintech, Entertainment and E-sport industry and Medication, you might change your mind.
FinTech
Well. As it is the most popular industry in this era. Many people are eager to take part in it. However, the background of the financial world relies on the internet and it requires low latency as an important factor. For instance, people are now opening an account to trade in stock over the internet. When the market opens, millions of people will send an order to trade. If your buying order matches in the low price and in a few seconds, the price goes up. Then, you are sending a selling order at a higher price. Now, you get the profit from evolution gain. On the other hand, if the price goes down. You can cut-loss to prevent losing the huge money. Those situations might take a second to happen. Sometimes, it is faster than a human reaction. That is how low latency takes charge.
Entertainment and E-sport Industry
In this field, it does not effect to life that much but it might frustrated people a little bit when lacking is happened. A good example of this topic is an online game especially in E-sport tournament. When it comes to the point of winning or losing of the game and it is the last action, then, you connection were drop a few seconds. After that, you lose the game and miss the trophy just because of that delay.
Remote Surgery
Normally, when people get sick or facing some illness. They will go to see the doctor. It’s normal. What if it is a special case which needs a special surgery. What would they do? They might buy a ticket to see a doctor or send a ticket to a doctor. As technology has been developed, telesurgery might be a better choice. However, there is some problem which is latency time between action and response. That is not a problem anymore if using our IP-core for telesurgery equipment.
Conclusion
After reading through the article, you already know that latency time is a period of time between the action is created and the action is happened. Furthermore, the effect of latency time in Fintech, Entertainment and E-sport industry and medication. If you want to know more about low latency IP-core please visit us at https://dgway.com/ASIP_E.html
Then, next question is how to measure latency time. We will illustrate this topic in next chapter.
