PULSE CODE MODULATION

 Pulse Code Modulation

 Analogue to Digital Conversion
 Quantizing
 Encoding
PULSE CODE MODULATION
DEFINITION: Pulse code modulation (PCM) is
essentially analog-to-digital conversion of a special
type where the information contained in the
instantaneous samples of an analog signal is
represented by digital words in a serial bit stream.

The advantages of PCM are:

•Relatively inexpensive digital circuitry may be used
extensively.
•PCM signals derived from all types of analog sources may be
merged with data signals and transmitted over a common high-
speed digital communication system.
•In long-distance digital telephone systems requiring repeaters,
a clean PCM waveform can be regenerated at the output of
each repeater, where the input consists of a noisy PCM
waveform.
•The noise performance of a digital system can be superior to
that of an analog system.
•The probability of error for the system output can be reduced
even further by the use of appropriate coding techniques.
SAMPLING, QUANTIZING, AND
ENCODING
 The PCM signal is generated by carrying out three
basic operations:
1. Sampling
2. Quantizing
3. Encoding
1. Sampling operation generates a flat-top PAM
signal.
2. Quantizing operation approximates the analog
values by using a finite number of levels. This
operation is considered in 3 steps
a) Uniform Quantizer
b) Quantization Error
c) Quantized PAM signal output
3. PCM signal is obtained from the quantized PAM
signal by encoding each quantized sample value
into a digital word.
 ANALOG TO DIGITAL CONVERSION

Analog TheAnalog-to-digital Converter

Input (ADC) performs three functions:
Signal Sampling
Makes the signal discrete in
time.
Sample If the analog input has a
bandwidth of W Hz, then the
minimum sample frequency
such that the signal can be
reconstructed without
ADC distortion.
Quantize
Quantization
Makes the signal discrete in
111
110
101 amplitude.
Round off to one of q discrete
100
011
010 levels.
Encode
001
Encode 000

Maps the quantized values to

digital words that are  bits
long.
If the (Nyquist) Sampling Theorem
is satisfied, then only quantization
Digital Output introduces distortion to the system.
Signal
111 111 001 010 011 111 011
UNIFORM QUANTIZATION
 Most ADC’s use
uniform quantizers.
 The quantization levels
of a uniform quantizer
are equally spaced
apart.
 Uniform quantizers are
optimal when the input
distribution is uniform.
When all values within
the Dynamic Range of
the quantizer are
equally likely.
QUANTIZATION EXAMPLE

Analogue signal

Sampling TIMING

Quantization levels.
Quantized to 5-levels

Quantization levels
Quantized 10-levels
 QUANTIZATION
The used of a non-uniform quantizer is equivalent to passing the
baseband
Signal through a compressor and then appling the compressed
signal to a
uniform quantizer.
A particular form of compression law that used in practice is the
so-called μ-law is defined by
Another compression law is the so-
called A-law defined by
ENCODING
 The output of the quantizer is one of M possible signal
levels.
 If we want to use a binary transmission system, then we need
to map each quantized sample into an n bit binary word.

 Encoding is the process of representing each

quantized sample by an  bit code word.
 The mapping is one-to-one so there is no distortion introduced
by encoding.
 Some mappings are better than others.
 A Gray code gives the best end-to-end performance.

 The weakness of Gray codes is poor performance when the

sign bit (MSB) is received in error.
GRAY CODES
 With gray codes adjacent samples differ only in one
bit position.
 Example (3 bit quantization):
XQ Natural coding Gray Coding
+7 111 110
+5 110 111
+3 101 101
+1 100 100
-1 011 000
-3 010 001
-5 001 011
-7 000 010
 With this gray code, a single bit error will result in an
amplitude error of only 2.
 Unless the MSB is in error.
 PCM ENCODING EXAMPLE

Levels are encoded

using this table

Table: Quantization levels with belonging code

words

Chart 2. Process of restoring a signal.

Chart 1. Quantization and digitalization of a signal. PCM encoded signal in binary form:
Signal is quantized in 11 time points & 8 quantization 101 111 110 001 010 100 111 100 011 010
101
segments. Total of 33 bits were used to encode a signal
WAVEFORMS IN A PCM SYSTEM FOR M=8

M  2n n  log 2 ( M )
M is the number of Quantization levels
n is the number of bits per sample
PCM TRANSMISSION SYSTEM