EtherChannel
EtherChannel combines from two to eight parallel Ethernet trunks between the same pair of switches, bundled into an EtherChannel. STP treats an EtherChannel as a single link, so if at least one of the links is up, STP convergence does not have to occur. With each pair of Ethernet links configured as an EtherChannel, STP treats each EtherChannel as a single link. Thus, both links to the same switch must fail for a switch to need to cause STP convergence. Without EtherChannel, if you have multiple parallel links between two switches, STP blocks all the links except one. With EtherChannel, all the parallel links can be up and working at the same time, while reducing the number of times STP must converge, which in turn makes the network more available.
EtherChannel also provides more network bandwidth. All trunks in an EtherChannel are either forwarding or blocking, because STP treats all the trunks in the same EtherChannel as one trunk. When an EtherChannel is in forwarding state, the switches forward traffic over all the trunks, providing more bandwidth.