Digital Signal Processing

Applications
HET403
ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL AND DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG
CONVERSION
Quantization, Coding & DAC
 Quantization

We have established that a digital signal is a sequence of numbers (samples) in which each
number is represented by a finite number of digits (finite precision). The process of converting
a discrete-time continuous-amplitude signal into a digital signal by expressing each sample
value as a finite (instead of infinite) number of digits is called quantization.
 Quantization of continuous-Amplitude signals

Quantization is a noninvertible or irreversible process that results in signal

distortion. It can be shown that the amount of distortion is dependent on the
accuracy, as measured by the number of bits in the A/D conversion process.

The error introduced in representing the continuous-valued signal by a finite set of discrete
value levels is called quantization error or quantization noise.

We denote the quantizer operation on the samples as and let denote the sequence of
quantized samples at the output of the quantizer.

Hence;
 Quantization of continuous-Amplitude signals

The quantization error is, therefore, a sequence defined as the difference between the
quantized value and the actual sample. Thus:

𝑒 𝑞 (𝑛 )=𝑥 𝑞 (𝑛 ) − 𝑥 (𝑛)
 Quantization of continuous-Amplitude signals

To illustrate the quantization process let us consider the following discrete-time signal:

was obtained by sampling the analog with a sampling frequency .

Analysis of the first 10 samples of , shown in Table 3.1, reveals that the description of the
sample value requires n significant digits.
 Quantization of continuous-amplitude signals
To illustrate the quantization process let us consider the following discrete-time signal:

was obtained by sampling the analog with a sampling frequency as shown in Fig 3.1.

Analysis of the first 10 samples of , shown in Table 3.1, reveals that the description of the
sample value requires n significant digits.
Let us assume that we want to use only one significant digit. To eliminate the excess digits, we
either simply discard them by truncation or by rounding; the resulting quantized signals are
shown in Table 3.1.
K

Figure 3.1: Graphical illustration of sampling at .

 Table 3.1: Numerical illustration of quantization with one significant digit using truncation or rounding.

K
 Quantization of continuous-amplitude signals
The rounding process is graphically illustrated in Fig 3.2, the values allowed in the digital
signal are called the quantization levels, whereas the distance between two successive
quantization levels is called the quantization step size or resolution.

The rounding quantizer assigns each sample of to the nearest quantization level; In contrast
a truncating quantizer assigns each sample of to the quantization level below it.

Therefore, the quantization error in rounding is limited to the range of ;

to
Such that;

The instantaneous quantization error cannot exceed half of the quantization step
K

Figure 3.2: Graphical illustration of rounding quantization.

 Quantization: Accuracy
If and represent the minimum and maximum values of and is the number of quantization
levels, then:

We define the dynamic range of the signal as, .

If the dynamic range is fixed, increasing the number of quantization levels, results in a
decrease of the quantization step size; This in turn leads to a decrease in the quantization error
and an increase in the accuracy of the quantizer.

In practice we can reduce the quantization error to an insignificant amount by choosing

a sufficient number of quantization level.
 Exercise
What is the quantization step size of the rounding quantizer in Fig 3.1?
In theory, quantization of analog signals always results in a loss of information ; This is
a result of the ambiguity introduced by quantization

Quantization is a many to one mapping and thus is an irreversible process since all samples in
a distance about a certain quantization level are assigned the same value.
 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
Fig 3.3 illustrates the sampling and quantization of an analog sinusoidal signal
.
Thus, from the original analog signal we obtain a discrete-time signal by sampling and a
discrete-time, discrete-amplitude signal after quantization; In practice, the staircase signal
can be obtained by using a zero-order.

This analysis is useful because sinusoids are used as test signal in A/D convertors.

If the sampling frequency satisfies the sampling theorem, quantization is the only error in the
A/D conversion process; Thus we can evaluate the quantization error by quantizing the
analog signal instead of the discrete-time signal .
Figure 3.3: Graphical illustration of the sampling and quantization of an analog sinusoidal signal.
 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
From Fig 3.4, it can be observed that is almost linear between quantization levels. The
corresponding quantization error is: . In Fig 3.4 denotes the time that stays within the
quantization levels.

Figure 3.4: Illustrates the linear portion of and

 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
The mean-square error power is given by:
 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
If the quantizer has b bits of accuracy and the quantizer covers the entire range 2A, the
quantization step is: , hence
 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
The quality of the output of the ADC is usually measured by the signal to-quantization noise
ratio ( SQNR ), which provides the ratio of the signal power to the noise power

The implies that the SNR increases by 6dB for every bit added to the word length, that is, for
each doubling of the quantization levels
 Quantization of Sinusoidal Signals
This is very important relationship because it dictates the number of bits required by a
specific application to guarantee a given signal to noise ratio. For example, most compact
disc players use a sampling frequency of and sample resolution, which implies an SQNR
of more than 96 dB
 Coding

We have established that a digital signal is a sequence of numbers (samples) in which each
number is represented by a finite number of digits (finite precision). The process of converting
a discrete-time continuous-amplitude signal into a digital signal by expressing each sample
value as a finite (instead of infinite) number of digits is called quantization.
 Coding of quantized samples
The coding process in an ADC assigns a unique binary number to each
quantization level; If we have levels we need at least different binary
numbers.

With a word length of b-bits we can create different binary numbers. Hence
we have , or equivalently, .

Thus the number of bits required in the coder is the smallest integer
greater than or equal to log2 L.
 Exercise
How many bits are required to encode the data from the rounding quantizer in Table 3.1?
 Practice Example 3.1
The discrete-time signal is quantized with a resolution (a) (b) .
How many bits are required in the ADC converter in each case?
Solution 3.1
 Practice Example 3.2
Determine the bit rate and resolution in the sampling of a seismic
signal with dynamic range of 1 volt, if the sampling rate is
and we are using an 8 bit ADC? What is the maximum frequency that
can be present in the resulting digital signal?
Solution 3.2
 Digital to Analog Conversion

To convert a digital into an analog signal we can use a digital-to-analog converter (DAC); The
task of a DAC is to interpolate between samples.
 DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERSION (DAC)

Our senses can not perceive the sequence of samples representing a speech signal or numbers
corresponding to a TV signal.

In many cases of practical interest (e.g., speech processing, audio and video processing) it is desirable to
convert the processed digital signals into analog form.

The process of converting a digital signal into an analog signal is known as digital-to-analog (D/A) conversion
(DAC). All D/A converters “connect the dots’" in a digital signal by performing some kind of interpolation,
whose accuracy depends on the quality of the D/A conversion process.
Fig 2.4 illustrates a simple form of D/A conversion, called a zero-order hold or a staircase approximation .
Fig 3.5: Zero-order hold digital-to-analog (D/A) conversion.
Other approximations are possible, such as: linearly connecting a pair of
successive samples (linear interpolation), fitting a quadratic through three
successive samples (quadratic interpolation), and so on.

The sampling theorem specifies the optimum interpolation for a bandlimited signal.
However, this type of interpolation is too complicated and hence impractical.
Therefore, from a practical viewpoint, the simplest DAC is the zero-order hold, this DAC
holds constant the value of one sample until the next one is received; and improvement to
the zero-order hold can be obtained by using linear interpolation to connect successive
samples with straight line segments.
In particular, it can be shown that sampling does not result in a loss of
information, nor does it introduce distortion in the signal if the signal
bandwidth is finite.
In general, suboptimum interpolation techniques result in passing above the
folding frequency. Such frequency components are undesirable and are usually
removed by passing the output of the interpolator through an analog filter, such
as a post-filter or smoothing filter.
In general, D/A conversion involves a suboptimum interpolator followed by
a post-filter.

In particular, it can be shown that sampling does not result in a loss of

information, nor does it introduce distortion in the signal if the signal
bandwidth is finite.
In principle, the analog signal can be reconstructed from the samples, provided
that the sampling rate is sufficiently high to avoid aliasing.

On the other hand, quantization is a noninvertible or irreversible process that

results in signal distortion. It can be shown that the amount of distortion is
dependent on the accuracy, as measured by the number of bits in the A/D
conversion process.

The factors affecting the choice of the desired accuracy of the A/D converter are
cost and sampling rate. In general, the cost increases with an increase in
accuracy and/or sampling rate.
END OF LECTURE 3