20/03/1443

PCM consists of three steps to digitize an analog signal:

1. Sampling.
2. Quantization.
Lecture 2 3. Binary encoding.

Before we sample, we have to filter the signal to limit the

maximum frequency of the signal as it affects the sampling rate.

Filtering should ensure that we do not distort the signal, i.e.

remove high frequency components that affect the signal shape.

PCM Block Diagram Sampling

• Analog signal is sampled every TS sec.
• Ts is referred to as the sampling interval.
• fs = 1/Ts is called the sampling rate or sampling frequency.
There are 3 sampling methods:
1. Ideal - an impulse at each sampling instant.

2. Natural - a pulse of short width with varying amplitude.

3. Flattop - sample and hold, like natural but with single

amplitude value.

The process is referred to as pulse amplitude modulation PAM and

the outcome is a signal with analog (non integer) values.

1
20/03/1443

Quantization Quantization Zones

Sampling results in a series of pulses of varying amplitude
values ranging between two limits: a min and a max. Assume we have a voltage signal with amplitudes Vmin=
-20V and Vmax=+20V.
The amplitude values are infinite between the two limits.
We need to map the infinite amplitude values onto a finite set of We want to use L=8 quantization levels.
known values.
Zone width Δ = (20 - -20)/8 = 5
This is achieved by dividing the distance between min and max
into L zones, each of height Δ = (max - min)/L The 8 zones are: -20 to -15, -15 to -10,-10 to -5, -5 to 0, 0
to +5, +5 to +10,+10 to +15, +15 to +20
The midpoint of each zone is assigned a value from 0 to L-1
(resulting in L values)
The midpoints are: -17.5, -12.5, -7.5, -2.5, 2.5, 7.5, 12.5,
Each sample falling in a zone is then approximated to the value 17.5
of the midpoint.

Assigning Codes to Zones Quantization Error

Each zone is then assigned a binary code. When a signal is quantized, we introduce an error - the coded signal is
an approximation of the actual amplitude value.
The number of bits required to encode the zones, or the number of bits
per sample as it is commonly referred to, is obtained as follows: The difference between actual and coded value (midpoint) is referred
nb = log2 L. to as the quantization error.

Given our example, nb = 3 The more zones, the smaller Δ which results in smaller errors.

The 8 zone (or level) codes are therefore: 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, BUT, the more zones the more bits required to encode the samples ->
101, 110, and 111 higher bit rate

Assigning codes to zones:

000 will refer to zone -20 to -15
001 to zone -15 to -10, etc.

2
20/03/1443

Quantization Error and SQNR

Signals with lower amplitude values will suffer more from quantization error as the
Bit rate and bandwidth requirements of
error range: Δ/2, is fixed for all signal levels.
PCM
Non linear quantization is used to alleviate this problem. Goal is to keep SQNR fixed
for all sample values.
The bit rate of a PCM signal can be calculated form the number of bits
Two approaches: per sample multiplied by the sampling rate: Bit rate = Nb x Fs
The quantization levels follow a logarithmic curve. Smaller Δ’s at lower amplitudes
and larger Δ’s at higher amplitudes. The bandwidth required to transmit this signal depends on the type of
line encoding used.
Companding: The sample values are compressed at the sender into logarithmic zones,
and then expanded at the receiver. The zones are fixed in height.
A digitized signal will always need more bandwidth than the original
Companding: is the process of compression and then expansion. With companded analog signal. Price we pay for robustness and other features of digital
system, the higher amplitude analog signals are compressed (amplified less than lower transmission.
amplitude signals) prior to transmission and then expanded (amplified more than the
lower amplitude signals) in the receiver.

Companding: is used in pulse code modulation (PCM). The process involves decreasing
the number of bits used to record the strongest (loudest) signals.

Example 2.1
PCM Decoder
We want to digitize the human voice. What is the bit rate,
assuming 8 bits per sample? To recover an analog signal from a digitized signal we follow the
following steps:

We use a hold circuit that holds the amplitude value of a pulse till the
Solution next pulse arrives.
The human voice normally contains frequencies from 0
to 4000 Hz. So the sampling rate and bit rate are We pass this signal through a low pass filter with a cutoff frequency
calculated as follows: that is equal to the highest frequency in the pre-sampled signal.

The higher the value of L, the less distorted a signal is recovered.

3
20/03/1443

Components of a PCM decoder Delta Modulation

This scheme sends only the difference between pulses, if the pulse at
time tn+1 is higher in amplitude value than the pulse at time tn, then a
single bit, say a “1”, is used to indicate the positive value.

If the pulse is lower in value, resulting in a negative value, a “0” is

used.

This scheme works well for small changes in signal values between
samples.

If changes in amplitude are large, this will result in large errors.

DM (cont …)
• Advantages
• Low signaling rate and low transmission channel
bandwidth because in DM only one bit is transmitted per
sample
• The delta modulator transmitter and receiver are less
complicated to implement as compared to the PCM
• Disadvantages
• The two distortions slope overhead error noise is
present.

4
20/03/1443

How to represented a digital signal?

For example, a 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage and a 0 as zero
voltage. A digital signal can have more than two levels. In this case, we
Aspects to digital-to Analog conversion
can send more than 1 bit for each level.
Bit Rate / Baud Rate

– Bit rate is the number of bits per second. Baud rate is the number of
signal units per second. Baud rate is less than or equal to the bit rate.

Two digital signals: one – Bit rate is important in computer efficiency

with two signal levels – Baud rate is important in data transmission.
and the other
with four signal levels • Baud rate determines the bandwidth required to send signal
– Baud rate = bit rate / number of bits per signal unit.

Examples:
1– An analog signal carries 4 bits in each signal unit. If 1000 signal units
are sent per second, find the baud rate and the bit rate?

Baud rate = 1000 bauds per second (baud/s)

Bit rate = 1000 x 4 = 4000 bps

2– The bit rate of a signal is 3000. If each signal unit carries 6 bits, what
is the baud rate?
What is Chanel capacity?
• Baud rate = 3000/6 =500 bauds/sec
The channel capacity is the maximum number of binary symbols (bits)
that can be transmitted per second with a probability of error arbitrarily
close to zero.

5
20/03/1443

3-5 DATA RATE LIMITS Capacity of a System

A very important consideration in data communications is • The bit rate of a system increases with an increase in the
how fast we can send data, in bits per second, over a number of signal levels we use to denote a symbol.
channel. Data rate depends on three factors:
• A symbol can consist of a single bit or “n” bits. The
1. The bandwidth available number of signal levels = 2n.
2. The level of the signals we use
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise) • The maximum frequency representable in a sampled
waveform is termed its Nyquist frequency, and is equal to
one half the sampling rate. Thus, for example, a waveform
Topics discussed in this section: sampled at 16,000 Hz can represent all frequencies up to
its Nyquist frequency of 8,000 Hz.
Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
Using Both Limits

Example 2.1

Nyquist Theorem Look again:

• Nyquist gives the upper bound for the bit rate of a We want to digitize the human voice. What is the bit rate,
transmission system by calculating the bit rate assuming 8 bits per sample?
directly from the number of bits in a symbol (or
signal levels) and the bandwidth of the system. Solution
• Nyquist theorem states that for a noiseless The human voice normally contains frequencies from 0
channel: to 4000 Hz. So the sampling rate and bit rate are
C = 2 B log22n calculated as follows:
C= capacity in bps
B = bandwidth in Hz

6
20/03/1443

Example 2.2 Example 2.3

Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz Consider the same noiseless channel transmitting a signal
transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The maximum with four signal levels (for each level, we send 2 bits). The
bit rate can be calculated as maximum bit rate can be calculated as

Example 2.4

Shannon’s Theorem
We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with a
bandwidth of 20 kHz. How many signal levels do we • Shannon’s theorem gives the capacity of a
need?
system in the presence of noise.
Solution
We can use the Nyquist formula as shown:
C = B log2(1 + SNR)

Since this result is not a power of 2, we need to either

increase the number of levels or reduce the bit rate. If we
have 128 levels, the bit rate is 280 kbps. If we have 64
levels, the bit rate is 240 kbps.

7
20/03/1443

The band width of a channel is the range of frequencies that it can

transmit with reasonable fidelity. e.g. lowest frequency f1= 300 Hz, Example 2.5
highest frequency f2= 4000 Hz:
Bandwidth B= f2 - f1 => 4000-300 =>3700 Hz
We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR for this
Rate of Communication C= B log2 (1+ SNR) bits/s
channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate and signal level?
This is known as Shannon’s equation, C is the channel capacity.
In other words, a channel can transmit B log 2 (1 + SNR) binary digits, Solution
or symbols, per second as accurately as one desires. First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper limit.

Moreover, it is impossible to transmit at a rate higher than this without

incurring errors. Shannon's equation clearly brings out the limitation on
the rate of communication imposed by B and SNR.
If there were no noise on the channel:
(N = 0), C =∞.

Example 2.5 (continued) Example 2.6

Consider an extremely noisy channel in which the value of the

The Shannon formula gives us 6 Mbps, the upper limit. signal-to-noise ratio is almost zero. In other words, the noise is so
For better performance we choose something lower, 4 strong that the signal is faint. For this channel the capacity C is
Mbps, for example. Then we use the Nyquist formula to calculated as
find the number of signal levels.

This means that the capacity of this channel is zero regardless of the
bandwidth. In other words, we cannot receive any data through this
The Shannon capacity gives us the upper limit; the Nyquist channel.
formula tells us how many signal levels we need.

8
20/03/1443

Example 2.7 Example 2.8

We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a regular The signal-to-noise ratio is often given in decibels. Assume that
telephone line. A telephone line normally has a bandwidth of 3000. SNRdB = 36 and the channel bandwidth is 2 MHz. The theoretical
The signal-to-noise ratio is usually 3162. For this channel the channel capacity can be calculated as
capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a telephone line is 34.860
kbps. If we want to send data faster than this, we can either increase
the bandwidth of the line or improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

Example 2.9
Problem 1
For practical purposes, when the SNR is very high, we can assume [1] A compact disc (CD) records audio signals digitally by using
that SNR + 1 is almost the same as SNR. In these cases, the PCM. Assume the audio signal bandwidth to be 15 kHz.
theoretical channel capacity can be simplified to
(a) What is the Nyquist rate?
(b) If the Nyquist samples are quantized into L= 65,536 levels
Prove and then binary coded, determine the number of binary digits
required to encode a sample.
(C) Determine the number of binary digits per second (bit/s)
For example, we can calculate the theoretical capacity of the required to encode the audio signal.
previous example as
(d) For practical reasons discussed in the text, signals are sampled
at a rate well above the Nyquist rate. Practical CDs use
44,100 samples per second. If L = 65,536, determine the
number of bits per second required to encode the signal, and
the minimum bandwidth required to transmit the encoded
signal.

9
20/03/1443

Problem 3
Problem 2
a) If an optical fiber has a bandwidth of 2 Gigahertz and a modem uses
512 signal levels, what is the maximum data rate according to Nyquist?
A television signal (video and audio) has a bandwidth of 4.2
MHz. This signal is sampled, quantized, and binary
coded to obtain a PCM signal. b) Using the fiber in part a, if the average signal power is 405 units and
the average noise power is 27 units, what is the maximum channel
a) Determine the sampling rate if the signal is to be capacity according to Shannon?
sampled at a rate 20% above the Nyquist rate.
b) If the samples are quantized into 1024 levels, determine
the number of binary pulses required to encode each
sample.
c) Determine the binary pulse rate (bits per second) of the
binary-coded signal, and the minimum bandwidth
required to transmit this signal.

Baseband signals produced by various information sources are not

always suitable for direct transmission over a given channel. These
signals are usually further modified to facilitate transmission.

This conversion process is known as modulation. In this process, the

baseband signal is used to modify some parameter of a high-frequency
Modulation carrier signal.

A carrier is a sinusoid of high frequency, and one of its parameters--

such as amplitude, frequency, or phase is varied in proportion to the
baseband signal. Accordingly, we have amplitude modulation (AM),
frequency modulation (FM), or phase modulation (PM).
What is QAM?

10
20/03/1443

Why Carrier?
1. Effective radiation of EM waves requires antenna dimensions Analog Modulation
comparable with the wavelength:
– Antenna for 3 kHz would be ~100 km long • The purpose of a communication system is to transmit
– Antenna for 3 GHz carrier is 10 cm long information signals (baseband signals) through a
Antenna is a radiation element and to get efficient radiation, length of communication channel
the antenna start from 0.1 λ and more. • The term baseband is used to designate the band of
For base band signal, frequency range is (300 to 3400 HZ) for voice frequencies representing the original signal as delivered by the
signal. input transducer
Wavelength is in range (C/f) = (113 to 1000 Km), result in unpractical – For example, the voice signal from a microphone is a
antenna size. baseband signal, and contains frequencies in the range of
0-4000 Hz
2. Base band signal that contain lower power is unpractical as it will
fade very quickly between Tx and Rx.
3. Using carrier increase SNR.

• Since the baseband signal contains frequencies in the audio For example, the frequency of a carrier wave for FM can be chosen
frequency range (4 kHz), some form of frequency-band shifting must from the VHF band of the radio spectrum
be employed for the radio system to operate satisfactorily
For AM, the frequency of the carrier wave may be chosen to be
around a few hundred kHz (from the MF band of the radio
• This process is accomplished by a device called a modulator spectrum)
• The transmitter block in any communications system contains the The demodulator extracts the original baseband signal from the received
modulator device modulated signal
To Summarize:
• The receiver block in any communications system contains the
demodulator device Modulation is the process of impressing a low-frequency information
signal (baseband signal )onto a higher frequency carrier signal
• The modulator modulates a carrier wave (the electromagnetic wave) Modulation is done to bring information signals up to the Radio
which has a frequency that is selected from an appropriate band in Frequency (or higher) signal
the radio spectrum

11
20/03/1443

Figure 5.15 Types of analog-to-analog modulation

Basic analog communications system
Baseband signal
EM waves (modulated
(electrical signal) Transmitter signal)

Input Transmission
transducer Modulator
Channel

EM waves (modulated
Carrier signal)
Baseband signal
(electrical signal) Receiver

Output
Demodulator
transducer

Types of Analog Modulation

• Amplitude Modulation (AM)
– Amplitude modulation is the process of varying the amplitude of
a carrier wave in proportion to the amplitude of a baseband
signal. The frequency of the carrier remains constant
• Frequency Modulation (FM)
– Frequency modulation is the process of varying the frequency of
a carrier wave in proportion to the amplitude of a baseband
signal. The amplitude of the carrier remains constant
• Phase Modulation (PM)
– Another form of analog modulation technique where the phase of
carrier signal is changing according to the variation in baseband
signal.

12
20/03/1443

Amplitude Modulation Amplitude Modulation

Carrier wave • A carrier signal is modulated only in
amplitude value
• The modulating signal is the envelope of the
carrier
Baseband signal
• The required bandwidth is 2B, where B is the
bandwidth of the modulating signal
• Since on both sides of the carrier freq. fc, the
spectrum is identical, we can discard one
Modulated wave
half, thus requiring a smaller bandwidth for
transmission.
Amplitude varying-
frequency constant

Figure 5.16 Amplitude modulation

Note

The total bandwidth required for AM

can be determined
from the bandwidth of the audio
signal: BAM = 2B.

13
20/03/1443

Figure 5.17 AM band allocation

Frequency Modulation
• The modulating signal changes the freq.
fc of the carrier signal
• The bandwidth for FM is high
• It is approx. 10x the signal frequency

Frequency Modulation

Carrier wave
Note

The total bandwidth required for FM can

Baseband signal Small amplitude: Large amplitude: be determined from the bandwidth
high frequency
low frequency
of the audio signal: BFM = 2(1 + β)B.
Where  is usually 4.
Modulated wave
Frequency varying-
amplitude constant

14
20/03/1443

Figure 5.18 Frequency modulation Figure 5.19 FM band allocation

Figure 5.20 Phase modulation

Phase Modulation (PM)
• The modulating signal only changes the
phase of the carrier signal.
• The phase change manifests itself as a
frequency change but the instantaneous
frequency change is proportional to the
derivative of the amplitude.
• The bandwidth is higher than for AM.

15
20/03/1443

AM vs. FM
Note • AM requires a simple circuit, and is very easy to generate.
• It is simple to tune, and is used in almost all short wave broadcasting.
• The area of coverage of AM is greater than FM (longer wavelengths
The total bandwidth required for PM can (lower frequencies) are utilized)
• However, it is quite inefficient, and is susceptible to static and other
be determined from the bandwidth forms of electrical noise.
and maximum amplitude of the • The main advantage of FM is its audio quality and immunity to noise.
Most forms of static and electrical noise are naturally AM, and an FM
modulating signal: receiver will not respond to AM signals.
BPM = 2(1 + β)B. • The audio quality of a FM signal increases as the frequency deviation
increases (deviation from the center frequency), which is why FM
Where  = 2 most often. •
broadcast stations use such large deviation.
The main disadvantage of FM is the larger bandwidth it requires

16