When designing a system that uses drivers, receivers, and transceivers that comply with RS-422 or RS-485, proper cable termination is essential for highly reliable applications with reduced reflections in the transmission line. Because RS-422 allows only one driver on the bus, if termination is used, it is placed only at the end of the cable near the last receiver. In general, RS-485 requires termination at both ends of the cable. Factors to consider when determining the type of termination usually are performance requirements of the application and the ever-present factor, cost. The different types of termination techniques discussed are unterminated lines, parallel termination, AC termination, and multipoint termination. Laboratory waveforms for each termination technique (except multipoint termination) illustrate the usefulness and robustness of RS-422 (and, indirectly, RS-485). Similar results can be obtained if 485-compliant devices and termination techniques are used. For laboratory experiments, 100 feet of 100-Ω, 24-AWG, twisted-pair cable (Bertek) was used. A single driver and receiver, TI AM26C31C and AM26C32C, respectively, were tested at room temperature with a 5-V supply voltage. Two plots per termination technique are shown. In each plot, the top waveform is the driver input and the bottom waveform is the receiver output. To show voltage waveforms related to transmission-line reflections, the first plot shows output waveforms from the driver at the start of the cable; the second plot shows input waveforms to the receiver at the far end of the cable.