Chapter 4

Digital
Transmission
P R E PA R E D B Y
N U S R AT C H O W D H U R Y
L E C T U R E R , D E PA R T M E N T O F E E E
Lecture Contents

 Line Coding
 Line Coding Scheme

DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION
Line Coding

A line code is a specific code (with precisely defined parameters)

used for transmitting a digital signal over a channel.
Line coding is used in digital data transport – the pattern of voltage,
current or photons used to represent digital data on a transmission
link is called line encoding.
Line coding and decoding
Mapping Data symbols onto
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
Signal element versus data element

The ratio ‘r’ is the number of data elements carried by a signal element.
Relationship between data rate
and 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.
Although the actual bandwidth of a digital signal is infinite, the
effective bandwidth is finite.
Data rate and Baud rate
The baud or signal rate can be expressed as:
S = c x N x 1/r bauds
where N is data rate
c is the case factor (worst, best & avg.) Note c = 1/2 for the avg. case
as worst case is 1 and best case is 0
r is the ratio between data element & signal element
Practice Problem
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 between 0 and 1?
Solution:
We assume that the average value of c is 1/2 . The baud rate is then
Primary Considerations when
Comparing Line Codes
We want the transmission bandwidths to be as small as possible.

 Power efficiency – Keep power as low as possible.

 Error detection and correction capability

 Favorable Power Spectral Density – We want zero power at DC (f = 0 ) to avoid baseline drift.

 Adequate timing content – Often we must extract the timing or clock information from the signal.

 Transparency – This means for every possible sequence of data the coded signal is received
faithfully.
 Signal is easily regenerated by repeaters.
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.
Considerations for choosing a good signal
element referred to as line encoding
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.
 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.
Effect of lack of Synchronization
Practice Problem
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.
Categories of Line Coding
Unipolar
All signal levels are on one side of the time axis - either above or
below
NRZ - Non Return to Zero scheme is an example of this code. The
signal level does not 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 and required
less bandwidth but costly in power consumption.
Unipolar-NRZ
• Binary 1--- high voltage •Binary 0-- no voltage is transmitted
Polar - Non Return to Zero (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 or vice versa.
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.
Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes
For NRZ-L: Consider 0 bit—(+ve) voltage and 1 bit– (-ve) voltage
Comparison between NRZ-L & NRZ-I

NRZ-L NRZ-I
Advantage:
Advantage:
• No DC component during long strings of 1.
• Easy to generate.
• No loss of synchronization for long strings of 1.
Disadvantage:
• More reliable to detect a transition in presence of noise than the
• DC component development during long level
strings of 0 or 1 result in “baseline wander”.
Disadvantage:
• Loss of synchronization during long strings of
• Presence of DC component resulting in “baseline wander”
0 or 1, as no transition available.
during long strings of 0.
• Loss of synchronization during long strings of 0 as no transition
available.
NRZ-L and NRZ-I

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.
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.
Return to Zero (RZ)
For RZ, Consider 0 bit— (-ve) voltage and 1 bit– (+ve)
voltage
Polar - Biphase: Manchester and
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.
◦ It is used in Ethernet (IEEE 802.3 standard) with lower data rates.
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.
Polar biphase: Manchester and differential
Manchester schemes
Manchester & Differential Manchester

Advantage:
• No loss of sync for long strings of 0 or 1.
• Transition in middle of bit period provided synchronization.
• Called self clocking codes.
• No DC component.
• Error detection if noise hampers transition.

 Disadvantage:
• Bandwidth is doubled.
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.
Bipolar - AMI and Pseudoternary
For AMI: Consider 0 bit -- by zero voltage and 1 bit -- alternates between +V and -V.

Pseudoternary: is the reverse of AMI.

Bipolar - AMI and Pseudoternary
Advantage:
• No DC voltage for long strings of 1 or 0.
• In case of AMI: No loss of synchronization for long strings of 1. Alternate +V and –V
on 1 provide simple means of error detection.
• In case of Pseudoternary: No loss of synchronization for long strings of 0. Alternate
+V and –V on 0 provide simple means of error detection
Disadvantage:
• In case of AMI: Loss of synchronization during long strings of 0 as no transition
available.
• In case of Pseudoternary: Loss of synchronization during long strings of 1 as no
transition available.
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 “2 m” symbols.
If we have L signal levels, we can use “n” signal elements to create L n signal elements.

In mBnL schemes, a pattern of m data elements is encoded as a pattern of n signal elements in which
2m ≤ Ln.

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 for 2 binary, L = T for 3 ternary, L = Q for 4 quaternary.

Multilevel Schemes
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.
Multilevel: 2B1Q scheme
For 2B1Q: m=2, n=1, L=Q=4
2^m=4, L^n=4
Here 2^m= L^n
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 (more +’s than -’s in the signal element) 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.
Multilevel: 8B6T scheme
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.
Multitransition: MLT-3 scheme
Multitransition: MLT-3 scheme
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!
Summary of line coding schemes
Practice Problem 1
We have a baseband channel with a 6.5 kHz bandwidth. What is the
data rate and signal rate for this channel if we use one of the following
line coding schemes?
i. Pseudoternary
ii. RZ
Practice Problem 2
Draw the NRZ-I and Differential Manchester line code of the
following binary sequence “11001100” and calculate the signal rate
for each case. Also compare these line coding and comment which
one is better for the given bit sequence.
Thank You