LECTURE # 06

PULSE CODE MODULATION (PCM) II

 Pulse Code Modulation
Most useful and widely used of all the pulse modulations.
PCM is a method of converting an analog signal into a digital signal
(A/D conversion).
An analog signal’s amplitude can take on any value over a
continuous range while digital signal amplitude can take on only a
finite number of values.
An analog signal can be converted into a digital signal by means of
three steps:
◦ sampling
◦ quantizing, that is, rounding off its value to one of the closest
permissible numbers (or quantized levels)
◦ Binary coding, that is conversion of quantized samples to 0s and
1s.
Quantization
Quantization is a process of A uniform/linear quantizer divides the
mapping a large (usually infinite) entire input signal range into equal
set of input values to a smaller set number of levels known as
of countable values. quantization levels denoted by ‘L’.

Most of the signals to be quantized

The basic principle used in have both positive and negative
quantization is rounding the input values so quantizer also assumes the
values to predefined levels. positive and negative values.

The step size between the

quantization levels is known as
quantile interval (denoted as ‘q’).
Quantization

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

 Amplitude Quantization
Define partition cell
J k :  mk  m  mk 1 , k  1,2,  , L
Where mk is the decision level or the decision t hreshold.
Amplitude quantizati on : The process of transform ing the
sample amplitude m(nTs ) into a discrete amplitude  (nTs )
If m(t )  J k then the quantizer output is νk where νk , k  1,2,  , L
are the representa tion or reconstruc tion levels , mk 1  mk is the step size.
The mapping   g(m) is called the quantizer characteri stic,
which is a staircase function.
quantization
The category may simply be called rounding or scalar
quantization.
Sampling converts a voltage signal (function of time) into a 
discrete-time signal (sequence of real numbers).
Quantization replaces each real number with an
approximation from a finite set of discrete values (levels),
which is necessary for storage and processing by numerical
methods.
 Scalar Quantizer

(a) Mid-tread
(b) Mid-rise
Quantization
Quantization Noise
Quantization can be referred to as For uniform quantization, quantization
‘rounding off’ which error (e) is uniformly distributed and
approximates/rounds off an input value can be represented as a uniform
to a predefined level. probability density function.

Due to this rounding off, some useful

The average quantization noise power
information is lost which in turn causes
noise/distortion in the output signal. equal to its variance, σ2 .
This noise is know as ‘Quantization
Noise’.
Calculate signal to quantization noise
power and observe the relationship
Quantization noise is inversely between the quantization levels and
proportional to the number of noise.
quantization levels.
Quantization Error
Quantization Error
Quantization Noise
Quantization Noise
Quantization

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

Quantizer Saturation
Due to quantization, there is a This phenomenon where the
difference between the input and difference between the input and
output values. This difference must be output is large due to a signal
reasonable for a good quantizer. exceeding the input range is
known as quantizer saturation.
The range of inputs for which the
above mentioned difference is small is
Quantizer saturation can be
referred as the operating range of the
quantizer. prevented with the use of
Automatic Gain Controller (AGC)
which adjust the input signal to
If the input exceeds this range, the limit it in the operating range.
difference between the input and
output becomes large.
Uniform Quantization
The quantizer in which all the quantile If the SNR is calculated for uniform
intervals are equal is known as the quantizer, the SNR for low
‘Uniform Quantization’.
amplitudes signals is poor as
compared to the high amplitude
For a uniform quantizer, the quantization signals. This is because of the
noise is equal for all the levels. uniform distribution of the noise
across all quantization levels.

For speech signals, low volume

(Amplitude) signals occur for 50 % of the
time. Usually the signal amplitudes are
less than ¼ of the RMS value. Only 15%
of the time, the signal value exceed the
RMS value.

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

Non-uniform Quantization
Non-uniform Quantization
 Non-uniform Quantization

Non-uniform Quantization = Compression + Uniform quantization

Non-uniform Quantization
 Non-Uniform Quantization
In order to prevent the poor signal to quantization noise ratio, non-uniform quantization is
used.

In non-uniform quantization, the quantization levels for low amplitude speech signals are
finely distributed which improves the SNR by reducing the quantization noise.

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

Non-Uniform Quantization
One way to perform the non- This compression and expansion
uniform quantization is by first characteristics pair is known as
distorting the input signal with ‘Companding’.
logarithmic compression and then
using the uniform quantization.
There are two types of
companding laws known as ‘µ-
At the receiver, the inverse Law’ and ‘A-Law’.
compression characteristics known
as expansion is applied to recover ‘µ- Law’ and ‘A-Law’?
the signal.
 Companding
F: nonlinear compressing function
F-1: nonlinear expanding function

F and F-1: nonlinear compander

y ^
F Q y F-1 ^
x x

Example
F: y=log(x) F-1: x=exp(x)
  Law / A Law
The μ-law algorithm (μ-law) is a companding algorithm, primarily used
in the digital telecommunication systems of North America and Japan.
Its purpose is to reduce the dynamic range of an audio signal.
In the analog domain, this can increase the SNR achieved during
transmission, and in the digital domain, it can reduce the quantization
error (hence increasing signal to quantization noise ratio).
A-law algorithm used in the rest of worlds.
A-law algorithm provides a slightly larger dynamic range than the μ-law
at the cost of worse proportional distortion for small signals.
By convention, A-law is used for an international connection if at least
one country uses it.
 Law Compression
Non-Uniform Quantization

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

 Binary Coding

From practical viewpoint, a binary digital signal (a signal that can take on
only two values) is very desirable because of its simplicity, economy, and ease
of engineering. We can convert an L-ary signal into a binary signal by using
pulse coding.
This code, formed by binary representation of the 16 decimal digits from 0 to
15, is known as the natural binary code (NBC).
Each of the 16 levels to be transmitted is assigned one binary code of four
digits. The analog signal m(t) is now converted to a (binary) digital signal. A
binary digit is called a bit for convenience.
Encoding

Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition.

Pulse Code Modulation Examples
Transmission Bandwidth and SNR

For a binary PCM, we assign a distinct group of n binary digits (bits) to

each of the L quantization levels. Because a sequence of n binary digits
can be arranged in distinct 2n patterns,
L=2n or n=log2L
Each quantized sample is, thus, encoded into n bits. Because a signal m
(t) band-limited to B Hz requires a minimum of 2B samples per second,
we require a total of 2nB bits per second (bps), that is, 2nB pieces of
information per second.
Because a unit bandwidth (1 Hz) can transmit a maximum of two
pieces of information per second, we require a minimum channel of
bandwidth Hz, given by
BT=nB Hz
This is the theoretical minimum transmission bandwidth required to
transmit the PCM signal.
 Transmission Bandwidth and SNR
We know that L2 = 22n, and the output SNR can be expressed as

where

Lathi book
 Transmission Bandwidth and SNR
We observe that the SNR increases exponentially with the
transmission bandwidth BT. This trade of SNR with bandwidth is
attractive and comes close to the upper theoretical limit. A small
increase in bandwidth yields a large benefit in terms of SNR. This
relationship is clearly seen by rewriting using the decibel scale as
Transmission Bandwidth and SNR

This shows that increasing n by 1 (increasing one bit in the code word)
quadruples the output SNR (6-dB increase).
Thus, if we increase n from 8 to 9, the SNR quadruples, but the transmission
bandwidth increases only from 32 to 36 kHz (an increase of only 12.5%).
This shows that in PCM, SNR can be controlled by transmission bandwidth.
Frequency and phase modulation also do this. But it requires a doubling of the
bandwidth to quadruple the SNR. In this respect, PCM is strikingly superior to
FM or PM.
 Example
SNR for varying number of representation levels for sinusoidal modulation
1.8+6 n dB

Number of Number of SNR (dB)

representation Bits per
level L Sample, n
32 5 31.8
64 6 37.8
128 7 43.8
256 8 49.8
 References
[1] Bernard Sklar, Digital Communications- Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd
Edition.
[2] Wikipedia [Online] Wikimedia Foundation. [Cited 06 ,03,2014]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization_(signal_processing)