Digital Transmission

Lecture 6
DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION

In this section, we see how we can represent digital data by using

digital signals. The conversion involves three techniques: line
coding, block coding, and scrambling. Line coding is always
needed; block coding and scrambling may or may not be needed.

Line Coding
Converting a string of 1’s and 0’s (digital data) into a sequence
of signals that denote the 1’s and 0’s.
For example a high voltage level (+V) could represent a “1” and
a low voltage level (0 or -V) could represent a “0”.
 Figure 4.1 Line coding and decoding

4.3
 Mapping Data symbols to Signal
levels
 A data symbol (or element) can consist of a number of data
bits:
 1 , 0 or
 11, 10, 01, ……
 A data symbol can be coded into a single signal element or
multiple signal elements
 1 -> +V, 0 -> -V
 1 -> +V and -V, 0 -> -V and +V
 The ratio ‘r’ is the number of data elements carried by a
signal element.

4.4
 Relationship between data rate &
signal rate
 The data rate defines the number of bits sent per
sec - bps. It is often referred to the bit rate.
 The signal rate is the number of signal elements
sent in a second and is measured in bauds. It is
also referred to as the modulation rate.
 Goal is to increase the data rate whilst reducing
the baud rate.

4.5
 Figure: Signal element versus data element

4.6
 Data rate and Baud rate
 The baud or signal rate can be expressed as:
S = c * N * 1/r bauds
where
N is data rate
c is the case factor (worst, best & avg.)
r is the ratio between data element & signal
element

4.7
 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
somewhere in between 0 and 1?

Solution
We assume that the average value of c
is 1/2 . The baud rate is then

4.8
 Note

Although the actual bandwidth of a

digital signal is infinite, the effective
bandwidth is finite.

4.9
 Example 4.2
The maximum data rate of a channel is Nmax = 2 × B ×
log2 L (defined by the Nyquist formula). Does this agree
with the previous formula for Nmax?

Solution
A signal with L levels actually can
carry log2L bits per level. If each
level corresponds to one signal element
and we assume the average case (c =
1/2), then we have

4.10
 Considerations for choosing a good
signal element referred to as line
 encoding
Baseline wandering - a receiver will evaluate
the average power of the received signal
(called the baseline) and use that to determine
the value of the incoming data elements. If the
incoming signal does not vary over a long
period of time, the baseline will drift and thus
cause errors in detection of incoming data
elements.
 A good line encoding scheme will prevent long
runs of fixed amplitude.

4.11
 Line encoding C/Cs
 DC components - when the voltage level
remains constant for long periods of
time, there is an increase in the low
frequencies of the signal. Most channels
are bandpass and may not support the
low frequencies.

 This will require the removal of the dc

component of a transmitted signal.

4.12
 Line encoding C/Cs
 Self synchronization - the clocks at
the sender and the receiver must
have the same bit interval.
 If the receiver clock is faster or
slower it will misinterpret the
incoming bit stream.

4.13
 Figure 4.3 Effect of lack of synchronization

4.14
 Example 4.3

In a digital transmission, the receiver clock is 0.1 percent

faster than the sender clock. How many extra bits per
second does the receiver receive if the data rate is
1 kbps? How many if the data rate is 1 Mbps?
Solution
At 1 kbps, the receiver receives 1001
bps instead of 1000 bps.

At 1 Mbps, the receiver receives 1,001,000 bps instead of

1,000,000 bps.

4.15
 Line encoding C/Cs
 Error detection - errors occur during
transmission due to line impairments.

 Some codes are constructed such that

when an error occurs it can be detected.
For example: a particular signal
transition is not part of the code. When
it occurs, the receiver will know that a
symbol error has occurred.

4.16
 Line encoding C/Cs
 Noise and interference - there are line
encoding techniques that make the
transmitted signal “immune” to noise
and interference.

 This means that the signal cannot be

corrupted, it is stronger than error
detection.

4.17
 Line encoding C/Cs
 Complexity - the more robust and
resilient the code, the more
complex it is to implement and the
price is often paid in baud rate or
required bandwidth.

4.18
 Characteristic of these line coding:
• There should be self-synchronizing i.e., both receiver and
sender clock should be synchronized.
• There should have some error-detecting capability.
• There should be immunity to noise and interference.
• There should be less complexity.
• There should be no low frequency component (DC-
component) as long distance transfer is not feasible for low
frequency component signal.
• There should be less base line wandering.

4.19
 Figure 4.4 Line coding schemes

4.20
 Unipolar
 All signal levels are on one side of the time axis -
either above or below
 NRZ - Non Return to Zero scheme is an popular
example of this code. The signal level does not
usually return to zero during a symbol
transmission.
 Scheme is prone to baseline wandering and DC
components. It has no synchronization or any
error detection. It is simple but costly in power
consumption.

4.21
 Unipolar Return to Zero RZ

4.22
4.23
 Figure 4.5 Unipolar NRZ scheme

4.24
4.25
 Polar - NRZ
 The voltages are on both sides of the time
axis.
 Polar NRZ scheme can be implemented
with two voltages. E.g. +V for 1 and -V for
0.
 There are two versions:
 NZR - Level (NRZ-L) - positive voltage for one
symbol and negative for the other
 NRZ - Inversion (NRZ-I) - the change or lack of
change in polarity determines the value of a
symbol. E.g. a “1” symbol inverts the polarity
a “0” does not.
4.26
 Figure 4.6 Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes

4.27
 • In NRZ-L the level of the voltage determines the value of the bit. In
NRZ-I the inversion or the lack of inversion
determines the value of the bit.

• NRZ-L and NRZ-I both have an average signal rate of N/2 Bd.

• NRZ-L and NRZ-I both have a DC component problem and

baseline wandering, it is worse for NRZ-L. Both have no self
synchronization &no error detection. Both are relatively simple to
implement.

4.28
 Example 4.4

A system is using NRZ-I to transfer 1-Mbps data. What

are the average signal rate and minimum bandwidth?

Solution
The average signal rate is S= c x N x R
= 1/2 x N x 1 = 500 kbaud. The minimum
bandwidth for this average baud rate is
Bmin = S = 500 kHz.

Note c = 1/2 for the avg. case as worst

case is 1 and best case is 0
4.29
 Polar - RZ
 The Return to Zero (RZ) scheme uses three
voltage values. +, 0, -.
 Each symbol has a transition in the middle.
Either from high to zero or from low to zero.
 This scheme has more signal transitions (two
per symbol) and therefore requires a wider
bandwidth.
 No DC components or baseline wandering.
 Self synchronization - transition indicates
symbol value.
 More complex as it uses three voltage level. It
has no error detection capability.

4.30
 Figure 4.7 Polar RZ scheme

4.31
Polar-Biphase: Manchester & Differential
Manchester
 Manchester coding consists of combining the

NRZ-L and RZ schemes.

 Every symbol has a level transition in the middle:
from high to low or low to high. Uses only two
voltage levels.
 Differential Manchester coding consists of
combining the NRZ-I and RZ schemes.
 Every symbol has a level transition in the middle. But
the level at the beginning of the symbol is
determined by the symbol value. One symbol causes
a level change the other does not.

4.32
4.33
 Figure 4.8 Polar biphase: Manchester and differential Manchester schemes

4.34
 • Differential Manchester always a transition in middle of interval
0 = transition at beginning of interval
1 = no transition at beginning of interval

• In Manchester and differential Manchester encoding, the transition at

the middle of the bit is used for synchronization.

• The minimum bandwidth of Manchester and differential Manchester

is 2 times that of NRZ. The is no DC component and no baseline
wandering. None of these codes has error detection.

4.35
Polar-Biphase: Manchester & Differential
Manchester

4.36
 Manchester Vs Differential Manchester
No Manchester Encoding Differential Manchester Encoding

Manchester encoding s a synchronous Differential Manchester encoding is a line

clock-encoding technique used by the code in which data and clock signals are
1.
physical layer to encode the clock and combined to form a single 2-level self-
data of a synchronous bit stream. synchronizing data stream

No transition at the start of a bit period

Low to High represents 1 and High to Low
2. represents 1 and transition at the start of
represents 0.
a bit period represents 0.

It provides less signal synchronization as

3. It provides better signal synchronization.
compared to manchester encoding.

Signal rate is the drawback of manchester It maps at least one transition per bit time
encoding as there is always one transition and possibly two bits. Its modulation or
4.
at the middle of the bit and maybe one signal rate is two times that of NRZ. Hence
transition at the end of each bit. it requires more bandwidth.

Used by IEEE 802.3 specification for Used by IEEE 802.5 specification for
5.
Ethernet LAN Token Ring LAN

4.37
 Bipolar - AMI and
Pseudoternary
Code uses 3 voltage levels: - +, 0, -, to
represent the symbols (note not transitions to
zero as in RZ).
 Voltage level for one symbol is at “0” and the
other alternates between + & -.
 Bipolar Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI) - the “0”
symbol is represented by zero voltage and the
“1” symbol alternates between +V and -V.
 Pseudoternary is the reverse of AMI.

4.38
 Figure 4.9 Bipolar schemes: AMI and pseudoternary

4.39
 Multilevel Schemes
 In these schemes we increase the number of
data bits per symbol thereby increasing the bit
rate.
 Since we are dealing with binary data we only
have 2 types of data element a 1 or a 0.
 We can combine the 2 data elements into a
pattern of “m” elements to create “2m”
symbols.
 If we have L signal levels, we can use “n”
signal elements to create Ln signal elements.

4.40
4.41
 Code C/Cs
 Now we have 2m symbols and Ln signals.
 If 2m > Ln then we cannot represent the data
elements, we don’t have enough signals.
 If 2m = Ln then we have an exact mapping of
one symbol on one signal.
 If 2m < Ln then we have more signals than
symbols and we can choose the signals that
are more distinct to represent the symbols
and therefore have better noise immunity
and error detection as some signals are not
valid.

4.42
 Representing Multilevel
Codes
In mBnL schemes, a pattern of m data
elements is encoded as a pattern of n
signal elements in which 2m ≤ Ln.

 We use the notation mBnL, where m is

the length of the binary pattern, B
represents binary data, n represents the
length of the signal pattern and L the
number of levels.

 L = B binary, L = T for 3 ternary, L = Q for

4 quaternary.
4.43
 Multilevel Codes

4.44
 Figure 4.10 Multilevel: 2B1Q scheme

4.45
 Redundancy
 In the 2B1Q scheme we have no redundancy and
we see that a DC component is present.

 If we use a code with redundancy we can decide

to use only “0” or “+” weighted codes and invert
any code that would create a DC component. E.g.
‘+00++-’ -> ‘-00--+’

 Receiver will know when it receives a “-”

weighted code that it should invert it as it doesn’t
represent any valid symbol.

4.46
 Multilevel: 8B6T scheme

The signaling elements in 8B6T are thus said to be ternary symbols (from the Latin word

ternarius, which means "composed of three items").

8
A sequence of eight binary digits has only 256 possible permutations (2 = 256), whereas there
6
are 729 unique ways in which in which six ternary signal levels can be combined (3 = 729). This

leaves 473 redundant signaling combinations that can be used to provide synchronization and error

detection capabilities, as well as ensuring that the signal output is balanced with respect to DC

(we'll see how that works shortly). The illustration below shows how a typical sequence of bits

would be encoded using 8B6T.

DC Balance:
4.47
4.48
 Figure 4.11 Multilevel: 8B6T scheme

4.49
 Multilevel using multiple
channels
In some cases, we split the signal transmission
up and distribute it over several links.
 The separate segments are transmitted
simultaneously. This reduces the signalling rate
per link -> lower bandwidth.
 This requires all bits for a code to be stored.
 xD: means that we use ‘x’ links
 YYYz: We use ‘z’ levels of modulation where YYY
represents the type of modulation (e.g. pulse
ampl. mod. PAM).
 Codes are represented as: xD-YYYz

4.50
 Figure 4.12 Multilevel: 4D-PAM5 scheme

4.51
 Multitransition Coding
 Because of synchronization requirements we force
transitions. This can result in very high bandwidth
requirements -> more transitions than are bits (e.g. mid
bit transition with inversion).
 Codes can be created that are differential at the bit
level forcing transitions at bit boundaries. This results in
a bandwidth requirement that is equivalent to the bit
rate.
 In some instances, the bandwidth requirement may
even be lower, due to repetitive patterns resulting in a
periodic signal.

4.52
 MLT 3

4.53
 Figure 4.13 Multitransition: MLT-3 scheme

4.54
 MLT-3
 Signal rate is same as NRZ-I
 But because of the resulting bit
pattern, we have a periodic signal
for worst case bit pattern: 1111
 This can be approximated as an
analog signal a frequency 1/4 the
bit rate!

4.55
 Table 4.1 Summary of line coding schemes

4.56
 Thank You

4.57