ITT400

Introduction To Data Communication

and Networking

Chapter 3
Digital Transmission

Mazlan Osman, FSKM, UiTM (Terengganu) 2014

 4-1 DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION

• In this section, we will discuss how we can

represent digital data by using digital signals.
• The representation involves three techniques:
• line coding
• block coding
• scrambling.

4.2
 LINE CODING
• Process of converting digital data (sequence of bits) to
digital signals
• At the sender, digital data are encoded into a digital signal;
at the receiver, the digital signal are decoded into digital
data.

Figure 4.1 Line coding and decoding

4.3
 DATA ELEMENT AND SIGNAL ELEMENT

• Data element : The smallest entity that can

represent a piece of information (bit).
• Signal element : The shortest unit (timewise) of
a digital signal to carry data element.
• Data elements are what we need to send; signal
elements are what we can send

4.4
 DATA ELEMENT AND SIGNAL ELEMENT

Figure 4.2 Signal element versus data element

4.5
 DATA RATE AND SIGNAL RATE
• Data rate : The number of data elements (bits) sent in 1s. Unit : bps
• Signal rate : The number of signal elements sent in 1s. Unit : baud
• Relation between data rate and signal rate (baud rate):
S = c x N x 1/r
• Example 4.1
A signal is carrying data in which one data element is encoded as
one signal element ( r = 1). If the bit rate is 100 kbps, what is the
average value of the baud rate if c is 0.5?
Solution
The baud rate is then

4.6
 DC COMPONENTS & SELF-SYNCHRONIZATION

DC Components
• Direct-current components
• The signal that have zero frequency and the
average amplitude is nonzero

Self-synchronization
• The method to correctly interpret the signals
received from the sender

4.7
 LACK OF SYNCHRONIZATION

Figure 4.3 Effect of lack of synchronization

4.8
 LINE CODING SCHEMES

Figure 4.4 Line coding schemes

4.9
 UNIPOLAR SCHEME

Uses only one voltage level

• Positive voltage defines bit 1 and the zero
voltage defines bit 0

Figure 4.5 Unipolar NRZ scheme

4.10
 POLAR SCHEME

NRZ (Non-Return-to-Zero)
• Have two versions of polar NRZ:

i. NRZ-L (NRZ-Level)
– Bit 1 is represented by negative voltage, bit 0
represented by positive voltage.

ii. NRZ-I (NRZ-Invert)

– Bit 1 is represented inversion of voltage, bit 0 is
represented by no change.

4.11
 POLAR SCHEME

Figure 4.6 Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes

4.12
 POLAR SCHEME
RZ (Return-to-Zero)
• Uses three values: positive, negative, and zero
• In RZ, bit 1 is represented by positive-to-zero
voltage, bit 0 is represented by negative-to-zero
voltage.

Figure 4.7 Polar RZ scheme

4.13
 POLAR SCHEME

Biphase : Manchester and Differential Manchester

• Best solution for synchronization problems

• Manchester (RZ + NRZ-L)

– Bit 1 is represented by negative-to-positive
transition; bit 0 is represented by positive-to-
negative transition.

• Differential Manchester (RZ + NRZ-I)

– Bit 1 is represented by no transition; bit 0 is
represented by transition.

4.14
 POLAR SCHEME

Figure 4.8 Polar biphase: Manchester and differential Manchester schemes

4.15
 BIPOLAR SCHEME
• Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI)
– A bit 1 is represented by positive and negative
voltage alternately; bit 0 is represented by zero
voltage.
– Advantages : DC component is zero and provide
synchronization for a long strings of 1s.

Figure 4.9 Bipolar schemes: AMI

4.16
 Summary of Line Coding Scheme

Table 4.1 Summary of line coding schemes

4.17
 4-2 ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION

• Sometimes, we have to sent analog data

(signal) using digital signal.
• In this section, we will discuss how we can
represent analog signal by using digital signals.
• In this section we describe two techniques,
• Pulse Code Modulation
• Delta Modulation.

4.18
 PULSE CODE MODULATION (PCM)
• Technique to change an analog signal to digital data (digitization)
• PCM encoder has three process:
1. The analog signal is sampled (sampling)
2. The sampled signal is quantized (quantizing)
3. The quantized values are encoded as streams of bit (encoding)

4.19 Figure 4.21 Components of PCM encoder

 SAMPLING

• Sampling is the process of measuring the non-

integral amplitude of analog signal at equal
intervals.
• The analog signal is sampled every Ts s, where Ts is
the sampling interval or period
• The inverse of the sampling interval is called the
sampling rate.
• There are three sampling methods : ideal, natural, and
flat-top
• The sampling process is sometimes referred to as
Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM).

4.20
 SAMPLING

Figure 4.22 Three different sampling methods for PCM

4.21
 SAMPLING
Sampling Rate
• Based on Nyquist theorem ;
1. We can sample signal only if the signal is band-limited ->
signal with an infinite bandwidth cannot be sampled
2. Sampling rate must be at least 2 times the highest frequency
contained in the signal.
Example
What sampling rate needed for a signal with a bandwidth of
10,000 Hz (1000 to 11,000 Hz)?

• Solution
Sampling rate = 2 (11,000) = 22,000 samples/S

4.22
 QUANTIZATION

• The result of sampling is a series of pulses with

amplitude values between the maximum and minimum
amplitudes of the signal.
• Set of amplitudes can be infinite with non-integral
values and these values cannot be used in the encoding
process.
• Quantization is the method of assigning integral
values in a specific range to sampled instances.
• In quantization, we approximate the value of the
sample amplitude to the quantized values.

4.23
 QUANTIZATION

Figure 4.26 Quantization and encoding of a sampled signal

4.24
 ENCODING
• After each sample is quantized and the number of bits per sample is
decided, each sample can be changed to an nb-bit code word
• A quantization code of 2 is encoded as 010; 5 is encoded as 101; etc
Bit rate = sampling rate x no. of bits per sample = fs x nb

• Example 4.14
We want to digitize the human voice. What is the bit rate, assuming
8 bits per sample?
Solution
The human voice normally contains frequencies from 0 to 4000 Hz.
So the sampling rate and bit rate are calculated as follows:

4.25
 4-3 TRANSMISSION MODES

• The transmission of binary data across a link can

be accomplished in either parallel or serial mode.
• In parallel mode, multiple bits are sent with each
clock tick. In serial mode, 1 bit is sent with each
clock tick.

4.26
 4-3 TRANSMISSION MODES

Figure 4.31 Data transmission and modes

4.27
 PARALLEL TRANSMISSION

• Send data n bits at a time using n channels

• Conceptually: use n wires to send n bits at one
time

Figure 4.32 Parallel transmission

4.28
 SERIAL TRANSMISSION
• Send data one bit follows another using one
channel
• Serial occurs in one of three ways :
asynchronous, synchronous, and isochronous

Figure 4.33 Serial transmission

4.29
 ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSMISSION
• The timing of signal is unimportant
• A byte is sent with one start bit (0) at the beginning and
one or more stop bits (1) at the end of each byte.

Figure 4.34 Asynchronous transmission

4.30
 SYNCHRONOUS TRANSMISSION
• The bit stream is combined into longer frames, which
may contains multiple bytes
• Bytes are sent one after another without start and stop
bits or gap

Figure 4.35 Synchronous transmission

4.31
 EXERCISE
1. Assume a data stream is made of threes 0s followed by two 1s
followed by two 0s and another three 1s. Encode this stream using
the following encoding schemes: Unipolar, NRZ-L, NRZ-I, RZ,
Manchester, Differential Manchester and AMI.

2. Using Nyquist Theorem, calculate the sampling rate for the

following analog signal:
a) An analog signal with frequency from 2000 to 6000 Hz
b) A signal with horizontal line in the time-domain representation

4.32