Digital Transmission

Chapter 4

German-Jordanian University
Dr. Rami Alazrai
 Topics
• Line Coding
• Characteristics of Line Coding
• Line Coding Schemes
• Block Coding
• Transformation
• Common Block Codes
• Sampling
• Pulse Amplitude Modulation
• Pulse Code Modulation
• Sampling Rate: Nyquist Theorem
• Bit Rate
• Transmission Mode
• Parallel Transmission
• Serial Transmission

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 Line Coding
• Line coding is the process of converting sequences of binary
data (i.e., bits) into digital signals
• Characteristics of line coding:
• Signal level vs. Data level
• Pulse rate vs. Bit rate
• DC components
• Self-synchronization

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 Signal Level versus Data level
• Signal levels: the number of values used to represent a particular signal
• Data Levels: refer to the number of values used to represent the
data
• 1st diagram: 2 signal levels, 2 data levels (zero for 0 and polarity for 1)
• 2nd diagram: 3 signal levels, 2 data levels (zero for zero and change
polarity for 1)

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 Pulse Rate versus Bit Rate
• Pulse is the minimum amount of time required to transmit a symbol
• Pulse Rate (Baud) is the number of pulses transmitted per second
• Bit Rate is the number of bits transmitted per second
• If the pulse carries only 1 bit, then the pulse rate and the bit rate are
the same
• If the pulse carries more than 1 bit, then the bit rate is greater than
the pulse rate

• Bit Rate = Pulse Rate x Log2 (L) Where : L is the number of data
levels of the signal

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 Pulse Rate versus Bit Rate
• Bit Rate = Pulse Rate x Log2 (L) ; L is the number of data levels of
the signal

• Example
• A signal with a pulse duration of 1 ms
• Compute the pulse rate and bit rate if the signal has the following
numbers of data levels:
 If number of levels is 2
 If number of levels is 4

• Duration of 1 ms means Pulse Rate = 1/ 10-3 = 1000 pulses/s (Bauds)

• Now
 L=2: Bit Rate = Pulse Rate x log2 L = 1000 x log2 2 = 1000 bps
 L=4: Bit Rate = Pulse Rate x log2 (L) = 1000 x log2 4 = 2000 bps

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 DC Component
• Excess energy in the line caused by unbalanced data levels
• As part of a signal, if it does not pass through, the signal gets
distorted
• Also, it does not carry information (no change), all we get is energy
loss

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 Synchronization
• The receiver must be synchronized with the sender in order to correctly
interpret the data signal
• The receiver's bit intervals must correspond exactly to the sender’s bit
interval.
• If the receiver clock is faster or slower, then
• The bit intervals are not matched
• And, the receiver might interpret the signals differently than the sender
intended.

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 Self-Synchronization
• Instead of using a clock, a self-synchronizing digital signal includes
timing information within the transmitted signal
• Transmitted signal should have enough signal transitions for the
receiver to recognize the beginning, middle, and end of pulse
• If the receiver’s clock is out of synchronization, these alerting points
can reset the clock

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 Example
• Example
• In a digital transmission, the receiver clock is 0.1 % faster than the
sender clock (difference is equal to 0.001 or 1 in a 1000)
• How many extra bits per second does the receiver receive:
 If the data rate is 1 Kbps?
 If the data rate is 1 Mbps?

• 1 Kbps: 1000 bits sent →1001 bits received → 1 extra bps

• 1 Mbps: 1,000,000 bits sent → 1,001,000 bits received → 1000 extra bps

• Example
• Data sent at 10 Kbps for 1 sec is received by 1% slower receiver? So ?!

• Sender will have transmitted 10000 bits, and

• Receiver will have read 9900 bits (100 missed bits)
• Its not only about missing bits, we have received erroneous data

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 Line Coding Schemes
• Unipolar
• Uses one voltage level, usually positive
• Polarity stands for 1 while no polarity stands for 0
• Polar
• Use two voltage levels; one positive and one negative
• Two voltage levels; normally low for 0 and high for 1
• Non-Return to Zero (NRZ)
• NRZ-Level (NRZ-L)
• NRZ-Invert (NRZ-I)
• Return to Zero (RZ)
• Manchester
• Differential Manchester
• Bipolar
• Uses three levels; positive, negative and zero
• Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI), from Telegraphy
• Bipolar n-Zero Substitution (BnZS), modified AMI

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 Unipolar Encoding
• Here positive polarity stands for 1 and no polarity stands for 0
• Advantages:
• Simple and primitive (almost obsolete but good to learn as basis)
• Inexpensive (not much hardware to make)
• Disadvantages:
• DC component
• Does not pass through transformers
• Excess energy residing on the line uselessly
• Lack of synchronization when long sequences of 1’s or 0’s are
transmitted

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 Polar Encoding
• Types are:
• Non-Return to Zero (NRZ)
• NRZ-Level (NRZ-L)
• NRZ-Inversion (NRZ-I)
• Return to Zero (RZ)
• Manchester
• Differential Manchester
• DC component is well reduced on average

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 Non-Return to Zero
• Signal is always positive or negative (no stay at zero)
• There are two types:
• NRZ-L, level depends on the state of the bit (usually +v = 0 & -v = 1)
• NRZ-I, Inversion of level represents 1 and no change represents 0
• Disadvantages:
. Lack of synchronization when long sequences of 0’s are transmitted

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 Return to Zero
• Uses 3 voltage levels: positive, negative, and zero
• Signal returns to zero level halfway through every bit interval
• 1 bit is represented by positive-to-zero
• 0 bit is represented by negative-to-zero
• Advantage
• Synchronization is guaranteed by every bit
• Disadvantage
• Requires more bandwidth due to changing the signal level twice per bit

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 Manchester Encoding
• Uses 2 voltage levels: positive and negative
• Uses inversion at the middle of each bit interval for both
synchronization and bit representation
• 1 bit is represented by negative-to-positive
• 0 bit is represented by positive-to-negative
• Advantage and disadvantage are those of RZ encoding

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 Differential Manchester Encoding
• Uses 2 voltage levels: positive and negative
• Uses inversion at the middle of each bit interval for synchronization
• Uses the presence or absence of the inversion at the beginning of
each bit interval to identify the bit
• 1 bit is represented by no transition
• 0 bit is represented by a transition
• Requires two signal changes to represent a 0 and one change to
represent a 1

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 Bipolar Encoding
• Alternate Mark Inversion (AMI)
• Uses 3 voltage levels: positive, negative, and zero
 0 bit is represented by level zero volt
 1 bit is represented by alternating positive and negative voltages
• Lack of synchronization when long sequences of 0’s are transmitted

• Bipolar N-Zero Substitution (BnZS), modified AMI

• After n consecutive 0’s, some 0’s are substituted with positive or
negative voltage levels in order to reset the synchronization clocks
• Substitution is performed in a way that violates the AMI rule so that the
receiver would know that these are 0’s

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 Other Line coding schemes:
2 Binary 1 Quaternary Encoding (2B1Q)
• Uses 4 voltage levels: -3, -1, 1, and 3 volts
• Each pulse represents 2 bits (00, 01, 10 and 11 respectively)
• Higher bit rate (2 times the pulse rate)
• Synchronization may still be a problem if long sequences of
repeated patterns occur

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Other Line coding schemes:
Multiline Transmission 3 Level Encoding (MLT-3)
• Uses 3 voltage levels: -1, 0, and 1
• Very similar to NRZ-I encoding
• 1 bit is represented by a transition from one level to the next at the
beginning of the pulse
• 0 bit is represented by no transition
• Synchronization may still be a problem if long sequences of 0’s are
transmitted

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 Block Encoding
• Block encoding is the process of stuffing a bit stream with redundant
bits in order to:
• Ensure synchronization
• Detect errors
• Above goals are almost guaranteed by careful design
• Block encoding steps:
• Step 1: Division, bit stream is divided into m-bit groups called blocks
• Step 2: Substitution
 The m-bit groups are substituted with n-bit codes, where n>m
 A number of n-bit codes are carefully chosen to ensure that the
synchronization and error detection are achieved
 Notice that at most only one half of the n-bit codes are needed. Why?
• Step 3: Line Coding
 Simple line coding scheme is used to convert the new bit stream into signals
 No need for a complex line coding scheme since block coding ensures at
least the synchronization

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Block Encoding Steps

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 Block Encoding Substitution
• Synchronization; mapping strategy avoids using n-bit codes with too
many consecutive 0’s or 1’s
• Error detection; If a received code is not one of the unused codes

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 Common Block Code
• 4B/5B Code
• Every 4-bit block of data is substituted with a 5-bit codes
• Each code has no more than one leading 0 and no more than 2 trailing 0’s,
this says “no more than 3 consecutive 0’s will ever be transmitted”
• The 5-bit codes are line encoded with NRZ-I
• Increased bandwidth due to more changes in codes
• 8B/10B Code
• Same as 4B/5B except for the number of bits substituted
• More codes are available for better error detection capability
• 8B/6T Code (shown below)
• Every 8-bit block of data is substituted with a 6-symbol code
• Each symbol is ternary (i.e.; have signal levels +1, 0, and -1)
• Use 256 codes out of 729 (28 out of 36)

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 4B/5B Encoding
• Some of the 5-bit codes unmapped for 4-bit data blocks, are used
for controls
• Examples: Quiet 00000, Idle 11111, Halt 00100, and …..

Data Code Data Code

0000 11110 1000 10010

0001 01001 1001 10011

0010 10100 1010 10110

0011 10101 1011 10111
0100 01010 1100 11010
0101 01011 1101 11011
0110 01110 1110 11100
0111 01111 1111 11101

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 Sampling
• Sampling is converting analog signals into digital by taking samples
at certain uniform intervals
• Idea started by telephone carriers to provide long distance services
• Analog voice signal loses power on long distance cables and
therefore require amplifiers
• Amplifiers distort the signal due to their own frequency spectrum and
phase changes and they also add noise
• Since digital signals are more immune to noise and distortion,
digitization is used

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 Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM)
• Sampling of an analog signal and generating a series of pulses
• PAM uses sample-and-hold technique
• Samples may still have any value; series of pulses is still analog
• Therefore, not useful for data communications
• PAM is the foundation for Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) analog-to-
digital conversion technique

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 Quantization
• Quantize the PAM series of pulses to creates a digital signal, by
assigning the closest discrete quantity to each sample value
• Quantized sample are then translated into a binary equivalent
number

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 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
• Binary digits are converted into digital signal using line coding
• 0’s and 1’s are then transformed into energy by line coding

+ +
+
+ +
+
+
+
+ +
+ +

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PCM Process

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 Sampling Rate: Nyquist Theorem
• How many samples needed to faithfully reproduce an analog signal
• Ideally, infinite number of samples though 3 samples tell something
Nyquist Theorem: Sampling rate should be at least twice the highest
frequency component in the original analog signal

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 Examples
• Example 1
• A signal in the range -5 to +5 Volt is sampled, with 12 levels precision
• How many bits should be sent for each sample?

• Need log2 12 = 4 bits, offering -7 to +7 (signed magnitude format)

• Has more than needed, but 3 bits offers -3 to + 3, which is not enough

• Example 2
• We want to digitize the human voice, using 8 bits/sample precision
• What is the bit rate?

• Human voice contains frequencies from 0 to 4000 Hz

• Sampling rate = 4000 x 2 = 8000 samples/s
• Bit rate = sampling rate x number of bits per sample
• Bit rate = 8000 x 8 = 64,000 bps = 64 Kbps

• Using 16 bit/sample doubles the requirement. Why use it then?

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 Data Transmission
• Parallel
• Group of bits (8 or 16 bits normally) transmitted in parallel all at once
• Generally fast
• Costlier, more space consuming and shorter in distance
• Used for printers, scanners, hard disks, …

• Serial
• Single bit at a time
• Generally slow
• Less costly and supports longer distance
• Two types
 Synchronous, bits are sent one after another without start/stop bits or gaps.
It is the responsibility of the receiver to group the bits
 Asynchronous, a frame is started with a start bit, and ended with a stop bit,
and there might be gaps between frames

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Parallel versus Serial

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 Asynchronous Transmission
• In asynchronous transmission, we send 1 start bit (0) at the beginning
and 1 or more stop bits (1s) at the end of each byte. There may be a gap
between each byte.
• Asynchronous here means “asynchronous at the byte level,” but the bits
are still synchronized; their durations are the same.

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 Synchronous Transmission
• In synchronous transmission, we send bits one after another without
start or stop bits or gaps.
• It is the responsibility of the receiver to group the bits

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