Data

Communications

Lecture 4
Digital Transmission

Dr. Dalia Nashat

Information Technology Department
Faculty of Computers and Information
Outline

4.1 Digital to Digital Conversation

4.2 Analog to Digital Conversation
4.3 Transmission Modes

1.2
DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION
 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
 The process of converting digital data to digital signals. We
assume that data, in the form of text, numbers, graphical
images, audio, or video, are stored in computer memory as
sequences of bits.
 At the sender, digital data are encoded into a digital signal
 At the receiver, the digital data are recreated by decoding the
digital signal.

3
Characteristics
 Signal Element Versus Data Element
 Data element is the smallest entity that can represent a piece of
information: this is the bit. A signal element carries data elements.
 A signal element is the shortest unit (timewise) of a digital signal.
 Data elements are what we need to send; signal elements are what
we can send.
 Data elements are being carried; signal elements are the carriers.
 We define a ratio r which is the number of data elements carried by
each signal element.

4
 Data Rate Versus Signal Rate
 The data rate defines the number of data elements (bits) sent in 1s.
The unit is bits per second (bps).
 The signal rate is the number of signal elements sent in 1s. The unit
is the baud.
 One goal in data communications is to increase the data rate while
decreasing the signal rate.
 We now need to consider the relationship between data rate (N)
and signal rate (S)

 we need to define three cases: the worst, best, and average.

 The worst case is when we need the maximum signal rate; the best
case is when we need the minimum.
 In data communications, we are usually interested in the average
case.

where N is the data rate (bps); c is the case factor, which varies for
each case; S is the
number of signal elements per second; and r is the previously
defined factor.
5
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 between 0 and 1?

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

6
 Bandwidth
 Although the actual bandwidth of a digital signal is infinite, the
effective bandwidth is finite.
 The bandwidth (range of frequencies) is proportional to the signal
rate (baud rate).

 Baseline Wandering
 In decoding a digital signal, the receiver calculates a running
average of the received signal power. This average is called the
baseline.
 long string of 0s or 1s can cause a drift in the baseline (baseline
wandering) and make it difficult for the receiver to decode correctly.
 A good line coding scheme needs to prevent baseline wandering.
 DC Components
 We can say that DC component means 0/1 parity that can cause
base-line wondering.
 Includes timing information in the data being transmitted. This can
be achieved if there are transitions in the signal that alert the
receiver to the beginning, middle, or end of the pulse.
7
 Built-in Error Detection
 Detect some or all of the errors that occurred during transmission.
 Some encoding schemes that we will discuss have this capability to some

extent.

 Immunity to Noise and Interference

 Immune to noise and other interferences.
 Some encoding schemes that we will discuss have this capability.

 Complexity
 A complex scheme is more costly to implement than a simple one. For
example, a scheme that uses four signal levels is more difficult to interpret
than one that uses only two levels.

8
Line Coding Schemes
We can roughly divide line coding schemes into five broad categories.

 Unipolar Scheme
 All the signal levels are on one side of the time axis, either above or
below.
• NRZ (Non-Return-to-Zero)
 Traditionally, a unipolar scheme was designed as a non-
return-to-zero (NRZ) scheme in which the positive voltage
defines bit 1 and the zero voltage defines bit 0.
 It is called NRZ because the signal does not return to zero at
the middle of the bit.

9
Polar Schemes
 In polar schemes, the voltages are on both sides of the time axis.
 The voltage level for 0 can be positive and the voltage level for 1 can be
negative.
 Bipolar Schemes Code uses 3 voltage levels: - +, 0, -, to represent the symbols
(note not transitions to zero as in RZ).
 Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ)
 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.

Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes

10
Return-to-Zero (RZ)
 The main problem with NRZ encoding occurs when the sender
and receiver clocks are not synchronized. The receiver does not
know when one bit has ended, and the next bit is starting. One
solution is the return-to-zero (RZ) scheme, which uses three
values: positive, negative, and zero.
 In RZ, the signal changes not between bits but during the bit.
 The main disadvantage of RZ encoding is that It requires two
signal changes to encode a bit and therefore occupies greater
bandwidth.
 Another problem is the complexity

11
Example 4.4

A system is using NRZ-I to transfer 10-Mbps data. What

are the average signal rate and minimum
bandwidth?

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

12
Biphase: Manchester and Differential Manchester
 The idea of RZ (transition at the middle of the bit) and the idea of
NRZ-L are combined into the Manchester scheme.
 In Manchester encoding, the duration of the bit is divided into two
halves.
 The voltage remains at one level during the first half and moves to
the other level in the second half.
 The transition at the middle of the bit provides synchronization.
 Differential Manchester combines the ideas of RZ and NRZ-I.
 The Manchester scheme overcomes several problems associated
with NRZ-L, and differential Manchester overcomes several
problems associated with NRZ-I.
 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.

13
Polar biphase: Manchester and differential
Manchester schemes

14
 Bipolar Schemes
 In bipolar encoding (sometimes called multilevel binary), there are
three voltage levels: positive, negative, and zero.
 AMI and Pseudoternary
• A common bipolar encoding scheme is called bipolar
alternate mark inversion (AMI).
• AMI means alternate 1 inversion.
• A neutral zero voltage represents binary 0.
• Binary 1s are represented by alternating positive and negative voltages.
• A variation of AMI encoding is called pseudoternary in which the 1 bit is
encoded as a zero voltage and the 0 bit is encoded as alternating positive and
negative voltages.

15
 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.
 The code designers have classified these types of coding as mBnL,
where m is the length of the binary pattern, B means binary data, n
is the length of the signal pattern, and L is the number of levels in
the signaling.
2B1Q
Uses data patterns of size 2 and encodes the 2-bit
patterns as one signal element belonging to a four-level
signal.
In this type of encoding m 2, n 1, and L 4
(quaternary).
8B6T
The idea is to encode a pattern of 8 bits as a pattern of
six signal elements, where the signal has three levels
(ternary).
In this type of scheme, we can have 28 256 different
data patterns and 36 729 different signal patterns.
4D-PAM5
The 4D means that data is sent over four wires at the
same time.
 It uses five voltage levels, such as −2, −1, 0, 1, and
17
2.
 Multitransition: MLT-3

The multiline transmission, three-level (MLT-3) scheme uses

three levels (V, 0, and V) and three transition rules to move
between the levels.
1. If the next bit is 0, there is no transition.
2. If the next bit is 1 and the current level is not 0, the next level is
0.
3. If the next bit is 1 and the current level is 0, the next level is the
opposite of the last nonzero level.

18
Summary of Line Coding Schemes

19
Block Coding
 block coding changes a block of m bits into a block of n bits,
where n is larger than m. Block coding is referred to as an
mB/nB encoding technique.
 Block coding is normally referred to as mB/nB coding; it
replaces each m-bit group with an n-bit group.
 4B/5B
The four binary/five binary (4B/5B) coding scheme was
designed to be used in combination with NRZ-I. Recall that
NRZ-I has a good signal rate, one-half that of the biphase,
but it has a synchronization problem.

20
21
8B/10B

 The eight binary/ten binary (8B/10B) encoding is

similar to 4B/5B encoding except
 that a group of 8 bits of data is now substituted by a
10-bit code.
 It provides greater error detection capability than
4B/5B.
 The 8B/10B block coding is actually a combination of
5B/6B and 3B/4B encoding

22
Scrambling
 We modify part of the AMI rule to include scrambling
 Note that scrambling, as opposed to block coding, is
done at the same time as encoding.
 The system needs to insert the required pulses
based on the defined scrambling rules.
 Two common scrambling techniques are B8ZS and
HDB3.

AMI used with scrambling

23
B8ZS
In this technique, eight consecutive zero-level
voltages are replaced by the sequence
000VB0VB.
The V in the sequence denotes violation.
The B in the sequence denotes bipolar, which
means a nonzero level voltage in accordance
with the AMI rule.

24
HDB3
 In this technique four consecutive zero-level voltages are
replaced with a sequence of 000V or B00V.
 The reason for two different substitutions is to maintain the
even number of nonzero pulses after each substitution.
 The two rules can be stated as follows:
1. If the number of nonzero pulses after the last substitution is
odd, the substitution pattern will be 000V, which makes the
total number of nonzero pulses even.
2. If the number of nonzero pulses after the last substitution is
even, the substitution pattern will be B00V, which makes the
total number of nonzero pulses even.

25
ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION
 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
The most common technique to change an analog signal to digital data
(digitization) is
called pulse code modulation (PCM). A PCM encoder has three
processes

26
1. Sampling
The first step in PCM is sampling. The analog signal is sampled every Ts
s, where Ts is
the sample interval or period. The inverse of the sampling interval is
called the sampling
rate or sampling frequency and denoted by fs, where fs 1/Ts.

Three different sampling methods for PCM

According to the Nyquist theorem, the sampling rate must be at least 2

times the highest frequency contained in the signal.

27
Nyquist sampling rate for low-pass and
bandpass signals

28
2. Quantization
The result of sampling is a series of pulses with amplitude
values between the maximum and minimum amplitudes
of the signal. The set of amplitudes can be infinite with
nonintegral values between the two limits. These values
cannot be used in the encoding process. The following are
the steps:
1. We assume that the original analog signal has
instantaneous amplitudes between Vmin and Vmax.
2. We divide the range into L zones, each of height (delta).

3. We assign quantized values of 0 to L 1 to the midpoint

of each zone.
4. We approximate the value of the sample amplitude to the
quantized values
29
Quantization and encoding of a
sampled signal
30
Quantization Levels

The choice of L, the number of levels, depends on

the range of the amplitudes of the analog signal and
how accurately we need to recover the signal.
If the amplitude of a signal fluctuates between two
values only, we need only two levels; if the signal,
like voice, has many amplitude
values, we need more quantization levels.
In audio digitizing, L is normally chosen to be 256; in
video it is normally thousands.
Choosing lower values of L increases the
quantization error if there is a lot of fluctuation in the
signal.

31
Quantization Error
Quantization is an approximation process.
The input values to the quantizer are the real
values; the output values are the approximated
values.
The output values are chosen to be the middle
value in the zone.
If the input value is also at the middle of the zone,
there is no quantization error; otherwise, there is an
error
The quantization error changes the signal-to-noise
ratio of the signal, which in turn reduces the upper
limit capacity according to Shannon.
It can be proven that the contribution of the
quantization error to the SNRdB of the signal depends
on the number of quantization levels L, or the bits
per sample nb 32
2. Encoding
 After each sample is quantized and the number of
bits per sample is decided, each sample can be
changed to an nb-bit code word.
 The encoded words are shown in the last row.
 A quantization code of 2 is encoded as 010; 5 is
encoded as 101; and so on.
 Note that the number of bits for each sample is
determined from the number of quantization levels.
 If the number of quantization levels is L, the number
of bits is nb = log2 L.
 The bit rate can be found from the formula

33
PCM Bandwidth
Suppose we are given the bandwidth of a low-pass
analog signal. If we then digitize the signal, what is
the new minimum bandwidth of the channel that
can pass this digitized signal? We have said that
the minimum bandwidth of a line-encoded signal is

This means the minimum bandwidth of the digital

signal is nb times greater than the bandwidth of the
analog signal. This is the price we pay for digitization.

34
Delta Modulation (DM)
 PCM is a very complex technique. Other techniques
have been developed to reduce the complexity of
PCM.
 The simplest is delta modulation.
 PCM finds the value of the signal amplitude for each
sample; DM finds the change from the previous
sample.

The process of delta modulation

35
TRANSMISSION MODES
The transmission of binary data across a link can be
accomplished in either parallel or serial mode. In parallel mode,
multiple bits are sent with each clock tick.
In serial mode, 1 bit is sent with each clock tick. While there is
only one way to send parallel data, there are three subclasses of
serial transmission: asynchronous, synchronous, and
isochronous

36
Parallel Transmission
Binary data, consisting of 1s and 0s, may be
organized into groups of n bits each. Computers
produce and consume data in groups of bits much as
we conceive of and use spoken language in the form
of words rather than letters. By grouping, we can
send data n bits at a time instead of 1. This is called
parallel transmission.

37
Serial Transmission
In serial transmission one bit follows another, so we need only
one communication channel rather than n to transmit data
between two communicating devices.
The advantage of serial over parallel transmission is that with
only one communication channel, serial transmission reduces
the cost of transmission over parallel by roughly a factor of n.

38
Asynchronous Transmission
Asynchronous transmission is so named
because the timing of a signal is unimportant.
Instead, information is received and translated by
agreed upon patterns. As long as those patterns
are followed, the receiving device can retrieve the
information without regard to the rhythm in which
it is sent. Patterns are based on grouping the bit
stream into bytes. Each group, usually 8 bits, is
sent along the link as a unit. The sending system
handles each group independently, relaying it to
In
theasynchronous transmission,
link whenever we send
ready, without 1 start
regard to abit (0) at
timer.
the beginning and 1 or more stop bits (1s) at the end of
each byte. There may be a gap between bytes.

39