Digital Transmission and

Bandwidth Utilization

PEC Rothna, PhD

Institute of Technology of Cambodia

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Contents
 Line Coding
 Line Coding Schemes
 Block Coding

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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
 high voltage level (+V) could represent a “1”
 Low voltage level (0 or -V) could represent a “0”.

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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
 The ratio ‘r’ is the number of data elements carried
by a signal element.

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

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Data Rate and Signal Rate

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Data Rate and Signal Rate
 Example
 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

Note

Although the actual bandwidth of a digital signal is

infinite, the effective bandwidth is finite.

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 Example
 The maximum data rate of a channel is

 𝑁𝑁max = 2 × 𝐵𝐵 × log2 𝐿𝐿 (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

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Choosing a Good Signal Element (Line Encoding)
 Baseline wandering
 a receiver will evaluate the average power of the received signal and use
that to determine the value of the incoming data elements.
 A good line encoding scheme will prevent long runs of fixed amplitude.
 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.

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Line Encoding

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Line Encoding
 Example
 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.

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Line Encoding
 Error detection
 Errors occur during transmission due to line impairments
 Some codes are constructed such that when an error occurs it can
be detected.
 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.
 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.

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Line Encoding

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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 but costly in power consumption.

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Polar - NRZ
 The voltages are on both sides of the time axis.
 Polar NRZ scheme can be implemented with two voltages.
 Example
 +V for 1 and -V for 0.

 There are two versions:

 NRZ - 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.
 “1” symbol inverts the polarity a “0” does not.

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Polar NRZ
 Example
 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 and worst case is 1 and best case is 0

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Polar - RZ
 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.

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Polar - Biphase
 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.

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Polar - Biphase

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Polar - Biphase
Note

• 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.

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Multilevel Schemes
 Concept
 Increase the number of data bits per symbol thereby increasing the
bit rate.
 Dealing with binary data, there are only 2 types of data element 1 or
0.
 By combining 2 data elements into a pattern of “m” elements, it can
create “2m” symbols.
 If there are L signal levels, it can use “n” signal elements to create
Ln signal elements.
 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.

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Multilevel Schemes
 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
 L the number of levels.
 L = B binary, L = T for 3 ternary, L = Q for 4 quaternary.

Note

In mBnL schemes, a pattern of m data

elements is encoded as a pattern of n
signal elements in which 2m ≤ Ln.

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Multilevel Schemes

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Redundancy
 In the 2B1Q scheme we have no redundancy
 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

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Summary of Line Coding
 Summary of line coding schemes

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Block Coding
 For a code to be capable of error detection,
 we need to add redundancy, i.e., extra bits to the data bits.

 Synchronization also requires redundancy –

 transitions are important in the signal flow and must occur
frequently.
 Block coding is done in three steps:
 division, substitution and combination.

 It is distinguished from multilevel coding by use of the slash - xB/yB.

 The resulting bit stream prevents certain bit combinations that when
used with line encoding would result in DC components or poor
sync. quality.

Note

Block coding is normally referred to as mB/nB coding;

it replaces each m-bit group with an
n-bit group.

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Block Coding

Block coding concept

Using block coding 4B/5B with NRZ-I line coding

scheme

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Block Coding

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Block Coding
Substitution in 4B/5B block coding

Redundancy

 A 4 bit data word can have 24 combinations.

 A 5 bit word can have 25=32 combinations.
 We therefore have 32 - 26 = 16 extra words.
 Some of the extra words are used for control/signaling purposes.

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Block Coding
 Example
 We need to send data at a 1-Mbps rate. What is the

minimum required bandwidth, using a combination of

4B/5B and NRZ-I or Manchester coding?
 Solution
 First 4B/5B block coding increases the bit rate to 1.25 Mbps.
The minimum bandwidth using NRZ-I is N/2 or 625 kHz.
 The Manchester scheme needs a minimum bandwidth of 1.25
MHz.
 The first choice needs a lower bandwidth but has a DC
component problem; the second choice needs a higher bandwidth
but does not have a DC component problem.

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