Pulse Amplitude Modulation

The transmission of data by varying the amplitude s ( voltage or power levels) of the individual
pulses in a regularly timed sequence of electrical or electromagnetic pulses. The number of
possible pulse amplitudes can be infinite (in the case of analog PAM), but it is usually some
power of two so that the resulting output signal can be digital . For example, in 4-level PAM
there are 2^2 possible discrete pulse amplitudes; in 8-level PAM there are 2^3 possible discrete
pulse amplitudes; and in 16-level PAM there are 2^4 possible discrete pulse amplitudes.

In some PAM systems, the amplitude of each pulse is directly proportional to the instantaneous
modulating-signal amplitude at the time the pulse occurs. In other PAM systems, the amplitude
of each pulse is inversely proportional to the instantaneous modulating-signal amplitude at the
time the pulse occurs. In still other systems, the intensity of each pulse depends on some
characteristic of the modulating signal other than its strength, such as its
instantaneous frequency or phase .

PAM is only one of several forms of pulse modulation. Other methods include varying the
durations (or widths), the frequencies, the positions, or the intervals of the individual pulses in a
sequence.

If you look at this from a purely theoretical standpoint, the possible pulse amplitudes in pulse
amplitude modulation can be infinite. This is the case with analog pulse amplitude modulation.
A 2 level pulse amplitude modulation causes the resulting signal to be digitized while a 4 level
pulse amplitude modulation has 22 possible discrete pulse amplitudes. An 8-level pulse
amplitude modulation has 23, and 16-level pulse amplitude modulation has 24 discrete pulse
amplitudes.

Regarding various pulse amplitude modulation, some systems maintain the amplitude of each
pulse directly proportional to the instantaneous modulating-signal amplitude at the time of
pulse occurrence. In other pulse amplitude modulation systems, the reverse is true that is,
inversely proportional to the instantaneous modulating-signal amplitude at the time of pulse
occurrence. In other pulse amplitude modulation systems, the amplitude is dependent on
additional factors related to the modulating signal such as the instantaneous frequency and
phase, which may be different than its strength.
However, in practical telecommunication applications, pulse amplitude modulation is a rare use
technology, having been superceded by other techniques such as pulse position modulation and
pulse code modulation. Additionally, a technology called quadrature amplitude modulation is
widely used in telephone modems with a data transfer rate of more than 300 Kbps.
While newer technologies are fast making their presence known, it should be noted that pulse
amplitude modulation is still useful in the popular Ethernet communication standard. For
example, 100BASE-T2 operating at 100Mb/s Ethernet medium is using 5 level PAM
modulations running at 25 mega pulses/sec over four wires. Later developments include the
100BASE-T medium which raised the bar to 4 wire pairs, running each at 125 mega pulses/sec in
order to achieve 1000 Mbps data transfer rates, but still with the same PAM5 for each pair.

Types
There are two types of pulse amplitude modulation:

1. Single polarity PAM: In this a suitable fixed DC bias is added to the signal to ensure that
all the pulses are positive.

2. Double polarity PAM: In this the pulses are both positive and negative.
Pulse-amplitude modulation is widely used in modulating signal transmission of digital data,
with non-baseband applications having been largely replaced by pulse-code modulation, and,
more recently, by pulse-position modulation.
In particular, all telephone modems faster than 300 bit/s use quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM). (QAM uses a two-dimensional constellation).
The number of possible pulse amplitudes in analog PAM is theoretically infinite. Digital PAM
reduces the number of pulse amplitudes to some power of two. For example, in 4-level PAM
there are possible discrete pulse amplitudes; in 8-level PAM there are possible discrete pulse
amplitudes; and in 16-level PAM there are possible discrete pulse amplitudes.

Uses
Ethernet

Some versions of the Ethernet communication standard are an example of PAM usage. In
particular, 100BASE-T4 and BroadR-Reach Ethernet standard, use three-level PAM modulation
(PAM-3), 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet uses five-level PAM-5 modulation[1] and 10GBASE-T 10
Gigabit Ethernet uses a Tomlinson-Harashima Precoded (THP) version of pulse-amplitude
modulation with 16 discrete levels (PAM-16), encoded in a two-dimensional checkerboard
pattern known as DSQ128.
Photo biology

The concept is also used for the study of photosynthesis using a specialized instrument that
involves a spectrofluorometric measurement of the kinetics of fluorescence rise and decay in
the light-harvesting antenna of thylakoid membranes, thus querying various aspects of the state
of the photosystems under different environmental conditions.[2]
Electronic drivers for LED lighting

Pulse-amplitude modulation has also been developed for the control of light-emitting
diodes (LEDs), especially for lighting applications.[3] LED drivers based on the PAM technique
offer improved energy efficiency over systems based upon other common driver modulation
techniques such as pulse-width modulation (PWM) as the forward current passing through an
LED is relative to the intensity of the light output and the LED efficiency increases as the forward
current is reduced.
Pulse-amplitude modulation LED drivers are able to synchronize pulses across multiple LED
channels to enable perfect colour matching. Due to the inherent nature of PAM in conjunction
with the rapid switching speed of LEDs it is possible to use LED lighting as a means of wireless
data transmission at high speed.
Digital television

The (mostly) North American Advanced Television Systems Committee standards for digital
television uses a form of PAM to broadcast the data that makes up the television signal. This
system, known as 8VSB, is based on a three-level PAM like 100BASE-TX, but uses additional
processing to suppress one sideband and thus make more efficient use of limited bandwidth.
Using a single 6 MHz channel allocation, as defined in the previous NTSC analog standard, 8VSB
is capable of transmitting 32 Mbit/s. After accounting for error correcting codes and other
overhead, the data rate in the signal is 19.39 Mbit/s.