What is the term for comparing the fastest and slowest signals in a run?

• A. Delay Skew
• B. Propagation Delay
• C. Bandwidth
• D. Crosstalk

Answer: (A)

Delay skew is the difference in propagation times among signals traveling through different conductors in the same run. In a multi-conductor cable, the fastest path and the slowest path don’t arrive at the end at the same instant due to slight length differences and material variations. This spread in arrival times is what we call delay skew, and it’s a key timing parameter for high-speed signaling because too much skew can cause bits to be sampled at the wrong moment.

Propagation delay, by contrast, is about the time for a signal to traverse a single path from transmitter to receiver, not the variation between paths. Bandwidth refers to the maximum data rate the channel can support, and crosstalk is the interference between adjacent pairs, not the timing difference among them.