Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)

Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

Pulse code modulation (PCM)

Pulse code modulation (PCM) is the name given to the class of
baseband signals obtained from the quantized PAM signals by encoding
each quantized sample into a digital word. Figure below shows the steps
required in PCM communication.

The source of information is sampled and quantized to one of L-

levels, then each quantized sample is digitally encoded into a k-bits
code word.

Where k log2 L
L 2k

The essential features of binary PCM are shown in figure below.

Assume that an analog signal, x(t), is limited in its excursions to the

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

range (-4V to +4V). The step size between quantization levels has been
set at 1V. Thus eight quantization level are employed, these located at
-3.5V, -2.5V, ………., +3.5V.
The code number 0 may be assigned to the level at -3.5V; the code
number 1 may be assigned to the level at -2.5V, and so on until the level
at 3.5V, which is assigned the code number 7.
Each code number has its representation in binary arithmetic,
ranging from 000 for code number 0 to 111 for code number 7.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

From the above figure each sample of analog signal is assigned to

the quantization level closest to the value of the sample. Beneath the
analog waveform, x(t), are seen four representations of x(t) as follows:-
the natural sample value, the quantized sample value, the code numbers,
and the PCM sequence.

 Quantization
The objective of the quantization step in PCM process is to represent
each sample by a fixed number of bits.
For example, if the amplitude of PAM resulting from sampling
process ranges between (-1V and +1V), there can be infinite values of
voltage between (-1 and +1). For instance, one value can be -0.27689V.
To assign a different binary sequence to each voltage value, we would
have to construct a code of infinite length. Therefore, we can take a
limit number of voltage values between (-1V and +1V) to represent the
original signal and these values must be discrete.
Assume that the quantization steps were in 0.1V increment, and the
voltage measurement for one sample is 0.58V. That would have to be
rounded off to 0.6V, the nearest discrete value. Note that there is a
0.02V error, the difference between 0.58V and 0.6V. See figure below.
Take step 12 in the curve, for example, the curve is passing through a
maximum and is given tow values of 12. For the first value, the actual
curve is above 12 and for second value below 12. That error from the
true value to the quantum value is called quantization distortion. This
distortion is the major source of imperfection in PCM system.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

+1 15

12

1
-1 0

12 12

Code value

The more quantization level, the better quality the system will
deliver. However, increasing the number of quantization level has two
major costs:-
1) The cost of designing a system with large binary code size needed.
2) The time it takes to process this large number of quantizing steps by
the coder.
Therefore, a very large number of quantizing levels may induce
unwanted delays in the system.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

Uniform and Nonuniform Quantization

Form the above discussion it cam be seen that the quantization noise
depends on the step size. When the steps have uniform size the
quantization called as uniform quantization.
For uniform quantization, the quantization noise is the same for all
signal magnitudes. Therefore, with uniform quantization the signal to
noise ratio (SNR) is worse for low level signals than for high level
signals.
Nonuniform quantization can provide fine quantization of the weak
signal and coarse quantization of the strong signal. Thus in the case of
nonuniform quantization, quantization noise can be made proportional
to signal size. The effect is to improve the overall SNR by reducing the
noise for the predominant weak signals, at the expense of an increase in
noise for the rarely occurring strong signals. Figure below compares the
quantization of strong signal versus a weak signal for uniform and
nonuniform quantization.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

 Noise consideration in PCM system

The performance of a PCM system is influenced by two major
sources of noise.
1) Channel noise, which is introduced anywhere between the
transmitter output and the receiver input, channel noise is always
present, once the equipment is switched on.
2) Quantization noise, which is introduced in the transmitter and is
carried all the way along to the receiver output.

Quantization Noise
The peak signal to r.m.s noise power ratio is given by
S0
3L2
N0
S0
) 4.8 20log L
dB 10
N0
where L=number of quantizer level.
S0= peak signal power.
N0= r.m.s noise power.
Increasing L increases the number of code pulses and hence the
bandwidth. We can thus relate SNR to bandwidth. This is easily done
by noting that

L nm
where m=the number pulses in code group.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

n=the number of code levels.

S
 0 3n2m
N0
S0
) 4.8 20m log
and dB 10 n
N0

In particular, for binary code n=2.

S0
)dB 4.8 6m
N0
Since the bandwidth is proportional to m, the output SNR increases
exponentially with bandwidth.

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 Department of Computer Engineering Techniques (Stage: 3)
Digital Communications
Msc. Musadaq Mahir
[email protected]

Example 3
Ten voice channels each of bandwidth (B.W) =3.2 KHz are
sequentially sampled at 8 KHz and TDM’ed.
(a) What is the system bandwidth (B.W).
(b) If TDM’ed signal is PCM’ed using 8-level quantization, find bit
rate (Rb)

Solution:-
(a) Without guard band

Ts  1  1 125 sec.
f s 8KHz
10 voice channels,  10 samples
10
 Necessary B.W= 80KHz
125 106
bit
(b) k log 2 L log2 8 3
sample
sample bit bit
Rb  80 10 3
3
240
sec. sample sec.
Example 4
A Delta modulator is used to encode speech signal band-limited to
3KHz with sampling frequency 100 KHz. For 1 volt peak signal
voltage, find
(a) Minimum step size to avoid slope overloading.

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