Pulse transmission  A pulse or data train can

be considered repetitive
and analyzed using the
Fourier series.
 In case of square wave,
the frequency spectrum
consists of only odd
harmonics.
 Transmitting a square
wave or a pulse through a
transmission medium
requires transmission of all
the frequency components
of the wave for a perfect
reconstruction.
 This implies that a channel
must have infinite
bandwidth.
1
Pulse transmission  As the amplitudes of the
harmonics decrease
exponentially, it is adequate
that the channel has a
capability to transmit the
fundamental and a few
more harmonic components
that would permit
unambiguous determination
of the pulse levels at the
receiving end.
 Besides, most of the pulse
trains are not square waves
and have a d.c. component.
 Hence, the channel must be
capable of transmitting d.c.
components as well or
techniques may be adopted
to remove d.c. components
from the waveforms before
transmission.
2
Pulse transmission
 Apart from the adequate bandwidth, the channel must offer
equal attenuation and equal delay for all the frequencies
within the bandwidth.
 Measurable transmission line parameters corresponding to
these two preceding requirements are attenuation constant Ac
and phase velocity Vp.
 Another source of distortion is the reflection of the transmitted
wave by the transmission line. The related parameter for this
is the characteristic impedance Z0 of the line.
 When the Vp is not constant for all frequencies, certain
frequencies may be delayed so much that they interfere with
frequencies corresponding to later pulses. This is known as
intersymbol interference.
 A constant Ac value for all frequencies would avoid amplitude
distortion.
 If the source and load impedances are equal to Z0, there is no
reflection of the wave from the load, and hence there is no
distortion. 3
Pulse transmission  There are two basic transmission
techniques for establishing a
time reference between the
transmitter and the receiver:
 Asynchronous transmission
 Synchronous transmission
 In AT, the start bit at the
beginning of the transmission
synchronizes the phase of the
receive clock with that of the
transmit clock.
 The end of transmission is
signalled by stop bits.
 In AT, the bit stream length is
usually eight bits corresponding
to a character & hence it is often
termed as character mode
transmission.
 As there is 25% transmission
overhead, it is not economical to
transmit large volume data using
asynchronous mode. 4
Pulse transmission  In ST, a single clock is used for
both transmission and reception.
 Transmitter clock is sent to the
receiver which uses the same
clock to sample the incoming
data.
 Simple but an expensive way of
sending the clocking information
to the receiver is to use a
separate channel for this
purpose.
 Alternatively, synchronous
receivers can be equipped with
special tuned circuits or PLL
circuits that are capable of
deriving the clocking information
from the data itself.
 The key to extracting clock from
the data is in the signal
transitions that occur in the data.
5
Line Coding
 Binary digital information representation/encoding usually fall into three
broad categories:
 Unipolar
 Polar
 Bipolar
 Unipolar encoding is so named because it uses only one polarity. This
polarity is assigned to one of the two binary states, usually the 1. The
other state, usually the 0, is represented by zero voltage.
 Two problems that make it less desirable: a DC component and
synchronization

6
Line coding

 Most transmission lines do not pass dc signals as they are

ac coupled using transformers or capacitors which results in
gradual decay of amplitudes of NRZ waveforms. This
phenomenon known as dc wander causes amplitude
reference to be lost for optimally discriminating between a
one level and a zero level.
 It is possible to nullify the effect of dc wander by using
techniques that restore the dc value to zero level after
every pulse or line codes can be designed such that they do
not contain any dc energy. 7
Line coding
 Polar encoding uses two voltage levels: one +ve & one –ve.
By using both levels, in most polar encoding methods the
average voltage level on the line is reduced and the dc
component problem of unipolar encoding is alleviated.
 In Manchester (used by ethernet LANs) and differential
Manchester encoding ( used by Token Ring LANs), each bit
consists of both positive and negative voltages, so the dc
component is totally eliminated.

8
Line coding
 In NRZ-L, the level of the signal is dependent upon the state
of the bit; a positive voltage usually means the bit is a 0 & a
negative voltage means the bit is a 1(or vice versa).
 In NRZ-I, an inversion of the voltage level represents a 1 bit.
A 0 bit is represented by no change. NRZ-I is superior to
NRZ-L due to the synchronization provided by the signal
change each time a 1 bit is encountered. A string of 0s can
still cause problems, but because 0s are not as likely, they
are less of a problem.

9
Line coding
 RZ encoding uses three values: positive, negative, and zero.
 In RZ, the signal changes not between bits but during each
bit. Like NRZ-L, a positive voltage means 1 and a negative
voltage means 0. But, unlike NRZ-L, halfway through each
bit interval, the signal returns to zero. A 1 bit is actually
represented by positive-to-zero and a 0 bit by negative-to-
zero, rather than by positive and negative alone.
 Main disadvantage is that it requires two signal changes to
encode one bit and therefore occupies more bandwidth.

10
Line coding
 Probably the best existing solution to the problem of synchronization is
biphase encoding where the signal changes at the middle of the bit interval
but does not return to zero. Instead, it continues to the opposite pole.
 Manchester encoding uses the inversion at the middle of each bit interval for
both synchronization and bit representation. A n-to-p transition represents 1
and vice versa.
 In differential Manchester, the inversion at the middle of the bit interval is
used for sync, but the presence or absence of an additional transition at the
beginning of the interval is used to identify the bit. A transition means 0, no
transition means 1. It requires two signal changes to represent 0 but only
one to represent 1.

11
Line coding
 Bipolar encoding, like RZ, uses three voltage levels: positive,
negative, and zero. Unlike RZ, however, the zero level in
bipolar encoding is used to represent binary 0.
 The 1s are represented by alternating positive and negative
voltages. If the first 1 bit is represented by the positive
amplitude, the second will be represented by the negative
amplitude, the third by the positive amplitude, and so on.
This alternation occurs even when the 1 bits are not
consecutive.

12
Line coding
 Bipolar alternate mark inversion (AMI) is the simplest type of
bipolar encoding. A neutral zero voltage represents 0 and 1s
are represented by alternating positive and negative
voltages.
 A variation of bipolar AMI is called pseudoternary, in which 0
alternates between positive & negative voltages.
 By inverting on each occurrence of a 1, bipolar AMI
accomplishes two things: first, the dc component is zero, and
second, a long sequence of 1s stays synchronized. There is
no mechanism to ensure the synchronization of a long string
of 0s.

13
Line coding
 Bipolar 8-Zero Substitution (B8ZS) is the convention adopted
in North America to provide synchronization of long strings
of 0s.
 The solution provided by B8ZS is to force artificial signal
changes, called violations, within the 0 string. Anytime eight
0s occur in succession, B8ZS introduces changes in the
pattern based on the polarity of the previous 1 ( the 1
occurring just before the 0s).

14
Line coding
 Using B8ZS, encode the bit stream
10000000000100. Assume that the polarity of the
first 1 is positive.

15
Line coding
 The High-density Bipolar 3 (HDB3), used in Europe and
Japan introduces changes into the bipolar AMI pattern every
time four consecutive 0s are encountered.
 As in B8ZS, the pattern of violations in HDB3 is based on the
polarity of the previous 1 bit. But unlike B8ZS, HDB3 also
looks at the number of 1s that have occurred in the bit
stream since the last substitution.
 Between two violation pulses, the odd number of bipolar
pulses should be ensured.

16
Line coding
 Using HDB3, encode the bit stream 10000000000100.
Assume that the polarity of the first 1 is positive and the
number of 1s so far is odd.

17