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8. DIGITAL TRANSMISSION

Data or information can be stored in two ways, analog and digital. For a computer to
use the data, it must be in discrete digital form. Similar to data, signals can also be
in analog and digital form. To transmit data digitally, it needs to be first converted to
digital form.

Digital-to-Digital Conversion
This section explains how to convert digital data into digital signals. It can be done
in two ways, line coding and block coding. For all communications, line coding is
necessary whereas block coding is optional.

Line Coding
The process for converting digital data into digital signal is said to be Line Coding.
Digital data is found in binary format. It is represented (stored) internally as series
of 1s and 0s.

Digital signal is denoted by discreet signal, which represents digital data. There are
three types of line coding schemes available:

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Unipolar Encoding
Unipolar encoding schemes use single voltage level to represent data. In this case,
to represent binary 1, high voltage is transmitted and to represent 0, no voltage is
transmitted. It is also called Unipolar-Non-return-to-zero, because there is no rest
condition i.e. it either represents 1 or 0.

Polar Encoding
Polar encoding scheme uses multiple voltage levels to represent binary values. Polar
encodings is available in four types:

Polar Non Return to Zero (Polar NRZ)

It uses two different voltage levels to represent binary values. Generally, positive
voltage represents 1 and negative value represents 0. It is also NRZ because there
is no rest condition.

NRZ scheme has two variants: NRZ-L and NRZ-I.

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NRZ-L changes voltage level at when a different bit is encountered whereas NRZ-I
changes voltage when a 1 is encountered.

Return to Zero (RZ)

Problem with NRZ is that the receiver cannot conclude when a bit ended and when
the next bit is started, in case when sender and receiver’s clock are not synchronized.

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RZ uses three voltage levels, positive voltage to represent 1, negative voltage to

represent 0 and zero voltage for none. Signals change during bits not between bits.

Manchester
This encoding scheme is a combination of RZ and NRZ-L. Bit time is divided into two
halves. It transits in the middle of the bit and changes phase when a different bit is
encountered.

Differential Manchester
This encoding scheme is a combination of RZ and NRZ-I. It also transits at the middle
of the bit but changes phase only when 1 is encountered.

Bipolar Encoding
Bipolar encoding uses three voltage levels, positive, negative, and zero. Zero voltage
represents binary 0 and bit 1 is represented by altering positive and negative
voltages.

Block Coding
To ensure accuracy of the received data frame, redundant bits are used. For example,
in even-parity, one parity bit is added to make the count of 1s in the frame even.
This way the original number of bits is increased. It is called Block Coding.

Block coding is represented by slash notation, mB/nB. Means, m-bit block is

substituted with n-bit block where n > m. Block coding involves three steps:

1. Division
2. Substitution
3. Combination.

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After block coding is done, it is line coded for transmission.

Analog-to-Digital Conversion
Microphones create analog voice and camera creates analog videos, which are treated
is analog data. To transmit this analog data over digital signals, we need analog to
digital conversion.

Analog data is a continuous stream of data in the wave form whereas digital data is
discrete. To convert analog wave into digital data, we use Pulse Code Modulation
(PCM).

PCM is one of the most commonly used method to convert analog data into digital
form. It involves three steps:

 Sampling
 Quantization
 Encoding.

Sampling

The analog signal is sampled every T interval. Most important factor in sampling is
the rate at which analog signal is sampled. According to Nyquist Theorem, the
sampling rate must be at least two times of the highest frequency of the signal.

Quantization

Sampling yields discrete form of continuous analog signal. Every discrete pattern
shows the amplitude of the analog signal at that instance. The quantization is done

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between the maximum amplitude value and the minimum amplitude value.
Quantization is approximation of the instantaneous analog value.

Encoding

In encoding, each approximated value is then converted into binary format.

Transmission Modes
The transmission mode decides how data is transmitted between two computers. The
binary data in the form of 1s and 0s can be sent in two different modes: Parallel and
Serial.

Parallel Transmission

The binary bits are organized into groups of fixed length. Both sender and receiver
are connected in parallel with the equal number of data lines. Both computers
distinguish between high order and low order data lines. The sender sends all the bits
at once on all lines. Because the data lines are equal to the number of bits in a group

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or data frame, a complete group of bits (data frame) is sent in one go. Advantage of
Parallel transmission is high speed and disadvantage is the cost of wires, as it is equal
to the number of bits sent in parallel.

Serial Transmission
In serial transmission, bits are sent one after another in a queue manner. Serial
transmission requires only one communication channel.

Serial transmission can be either asynchronous or synchronous.

Asynchronous Serial Transmission

It is named so because there is no importance of timing. Data-bits have specific

pattern and they help receiver recognize the start and end data bits. For example, a
0 is prefixed on every data byte and one or more 1s are added at the end.

Two continuous data-frames (bytes) may have a gap between them.

Synchronous Serial Transmission

Timing in synchronous transmission has importance as there is no mechanism

followed to recognize start and end data bits. There is no pattern or prefix/suffix
method. Data bits are sent in burst mode without maintaining gap between bytes (8-
bits). Single burst of data bits may contain a number of bytes. Therefore, timing
becomes very important.

It is up to the receiver to recognize and separate bits into bytes. The advantage of
synchronous transmission is high speed, and it has no overhead of extra header and
footer bits as in asynchronous transmission.

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