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Use precise, tunable noise to test data systems

TOM NAPIER, CONSULTANT
noise level one point at a You cannot quantify the time. The setting, measureresponse of a data-transmisA binary sequence generates wideband ment, and adjustment of the sion system to a noisy input tunable analog noise more accurately than noise level for each point unless you test it with noise took perhaps 10 minutes of having precisely known a commercial noise generator does. painstaking work. Plotting characteristics. The accuracy the complete curve at one bit of your measurements cannot be better than the calibration of the level, bandwidth, rate took a couple of hours or much longer if the application and amplitude distribution of the noise source. You can sim- required measurements at low bit-error rates. (Even an plify the measurement of data receivers performance by approximate bit-error-rate measurement can take a great deal of time. Because 10% accurausing an accurate synthetic cy requires counting 100 noise source. FIGURE 1 errors, confirming that a 10You should test a bit synkbps system has an error rate chronizer, the part of a rebetter than 109 takes more ceiving system that translates a demodulated signal than 16 weeks.) TRUE into clean digital data, by The characterization of a GAUSSIAN NOISE feeding it with a mixture of bit synchronizer requires you binary data and Gaussian to plot its error-rate curve at noise and then measuring its many bit rates. This task can output bit-error rate for SNR. take several days and does A bit-error-rate tester (BERT) not take place too often. BIT ONE BIT ZERO BIT measures the error rate of a (a) When choosing which bit ERRORS network under normal opsynchronizer to buy, you erating conditions (Referhave to assume that the manence 1). It rarely provides ufacturers have done such a AMPLITUDEnoise injection because gentest and have accurately LIMITED erating calibrated, variablereported the results. GeneratNOISE bandwidth, Gaussian noise ing binary data for the test is is difficult to do at a reasoneasy; the data comprises a able cost. continuous stream of bits Traditionally, a skilled from a pseudorandom setechnician used a BERT; sevquence. This sequence simuONE BIT ZERO BIT eral noise generators; a widelates random data but is preNO ERRORS band rms power meter and (b) dictable. Most BERTs offer a an array of mixers, filters, dozen or more sequence and attenuators to measure lengths and can synchronize the performance of a bit Bit errors occur when noise peaks cross the bit polarity thresh- themselves to the received synchronizer. This techni- old. The shaded area shows the fraction of one bits that are data even if it contains as cian would plot the bit-error mistaken for zero bits (a). If the noise generator limits its much as 10% of bit errors. rate against the signal-to- output, the tester counts no errors (b). Once synchronized, the

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BERT knows what bits to PN SHIFT REGISTER expect and can thus report INPUT how many errors it finds. Knowing the bit rate and the elapsed time, the BERT CLOCK can calculate the bit-error rate. You can easily set the data amplitude because B7 (LSB) the signal is, in effect, B6 switching between two dc B5 B4 levels. The tough problem DAC B3 is mixing the correct level B2 NOISE of noise with the binary B1 OUTPUT signal. This noise is easy B0 (MSB) enough to specify. The FIGURE 2 CLK InteRange Instrumentation Group standard for testing bit synchronizers The spectrum-flattening filter uses a unique interconnection between the shift register and the says that the synchroniz- DAC inputs. You can combine the outputs of 12 such filters to generate Gaussian noise. ers 3-dB bandwidth should be five times their bit rate. Within this bandwidth, the generation of no errors (Figure 1). Even the test signal gennoise power should not vary significantly with frequency erators output amplifier needs a head room approximately (Reference 2). In telemetry testing, you measure the refer- ten times the amplitude of the binary signal. A typical commercial noise generator is a fixed-bandwidth, ence-noise power in a bandwidth equal to the bit rate. You must know this power to an accuracy better than the resolu- fixed-amplitude device. Its rms output amplitude is usually tion that the test requires; an absolute accuracy of 0.1 dB is specified to lie within a 6-dB range. Its flatness (the variation desirable. To measure the bit-error-rate with both light and of its output amplitude with frequency) may be no better heavy noise, the noise power must be adjustable over approx- than 1 or 2 dB. Its amplitude distribution is specified only as a peak-to-rms ratio of, typically, 5-to-1. Even at a single bit imately 12 dB. The amplitude distribution of the noise should be Gauss- rate, a commercial noise generator can give misleading results ian, implying that the noise contains occasional peaks that (Reference 3). When you change the bit rate, you must are many times the noises mean amplitude. To avoid getting change the bandwidth of the noise generator to match the misleading test results, the noise amplifier must not clip these rate. The good news is that lowpass filtering makes the noise peaks, because you are trying to count the bit errors they more Gaussian; the bad news is that it reduces the noises rms induce. A noise generator that clips its output can lead to the amplitude. You have to amplify the noise to retain the same SNR. At low bandwidths, the output of a wideband noise genFIGURE 3 erator is so tiny that you need to switch to a generator designed for a low-frequency output. An instrument intended to test bit-error rates over a six-decade bit-rate range, a 10 common requirement, might need a dozen noise generators, 0 a wideband variable-gain amplifier, and a wideband rms 3 dB power meter to set the amplitude of the noise. This equip10 ment could be expensive and cumbersome. In designing such AMPLITUDE a BERT, you quickly realize that noise generation is the crux (dB) 20 of the problem. The BERT requires a noise generator with a 30 calibrated amplitude and a Gaussian distribution that you can tune over a wide frequency range without a change in 40 amplitude. 50 In the late 1960s, Hewlett-Packard sold generators that 0 1 2 lowpass-filtered the output of a binary pseudorandom FREQUENCY/CLOCK RATE sequence to achieve audio-frequency noise. The advantage of such a generator was that, because what you now know as a FIR filter performed the filtering, the output amplitude was constant. The noise bandwidth was proportional to the freThe synthetic noise spectrum is flat to 45% of the clock rate quency of the clock driving the sequence generator. A literabut has secondary peaks at 150 and 250% of the rate.

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ture search reveals many papers describing variants of this idea. They all have one thing in com8-BIT 8-BIT 8-BIT 8-BIT mon: The noise bandSHIFT REGISTER SHIFT REGISTER SHIFT REGISTER SHIFT REGISTER width is about one1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 twentieth of the shift-register clock rate. LOOP FEEDBACK This tester needs noise CLOCK flat to 100 MHz, so the classical designs would require a 2-GHz shift PN OUTPUT A register. Previous designs PN OUTPUT B achieved a Gaussian output by averaging a PN OUTPUT C binary sequence over time. This approach uses FIGURE 4 only the lower part of the (sine )/ frequency spectrum of the pseudo- In a pseudorandom sequence, you can achieve taps many millions of bits apart by exclusive-ORing random sequence, in- the shift-register bits. For example, the delay between outputs A and B is 77,111,602 bits and that herently making the between A and C is 199,945,782 bits. This number provides effectively uncorrelated output noise white. To solve sequences. this problem, you can separate the two problems: making the spectrum flat and uncorrelated sequences by using two master pseudoranmaking the distribution Gaussian. A little experimentation dom sequence generators, one with 28 bits and another with shows that you can approximate a FIR filter having the 31. These generated patterns repeat every 268,435,455 and inverse of the (sine )/ shape using a shift register and a 2,147,483,647 bits, respectively. By exclusive-ORing bits DAC. The binary weighted inputs to the DAC are not the from the shift register, you can make taps into each sequence optimum coefficients for a FIR filter but at least the ampli- at points many millions of bits apart (Figure 4). Each tap drives an individual 8-bit shift register connected tude distribution of the DAC output is uniform. That is, when you feed a long pseudorandom sequence to the shift register, to its own high-speed DAC. Using triple-video DACs saves all possible DAC input states, other than the all-zeros state, space. You trim the output of each DAC to a standard level occur equally often. (This situation is the window property and sum the 12 currents to generate the analog noise output. The noise bandwidth is more than half the shift clock freof a pseudorandom sequence.) By tinkering, you may find the optimum 5-bit intercon- quency, and you can use boards that generate noise tunable nection between the shift-register bits and the DAC inputs. to 100 MHz. At a 200-MHz clock rate, the noise pattern Figure 2 shows the 8-bit arrangement that leads to the flat- repeats about every 91 years. However, if you reset the shift test and widest bandwidth correction for the (sine )/ spec- registers to a given initial pattern, the noise repeats exactly. trum. The DAC output has a spectrum that is flat to within This approach is useful when testing two competing bit syn0.2 dB to as much as 45% of the shift clock rate (Figure 3). Its chronizers because you can test both with exactly the same 3-dB bandwidth is 59% of the clock rate. Incidentally, Refer- data and noise, eliminating statistical artifacts from the ence 4 shows an approach using a shift-register-to-DAC inter- results. This noise source allows you to automate bit-errorconnection to achieve odd output spectra, albeit not this flat- rate measurements, greatly speeding the production-line testtened one. Once you generate a wideband, uniformly ing of bit synchronizers. The analog noise output makes a small step every clock distributed noise source, the remaining problem is to make it Gaussian. A brute-force solution is based on the Central Limit period. This step reflects the fact that the FIR filter flattens Theorem. Loosely stated, this theorem is that the sum of the first lobe of the (sine )/ spectrum but does not supmany uncorrelated uniform distributions tends to a Gaussian press the lobes that occur at frequencies higher than the clock rate. Because you are testing with a noise bandwidth distribution. A total of 12 summed distributions is enough to give an five times the bit rate, the shift clock rate is 10 times the bit output that has a 6-to-1 peak-to-rms ratio. This approach is rate. The equipment under test significantly attenuates the better than using a typical commercial noise generator higher frequencies in the noise. Other applications might because you can predict the deviation from a true Gaussian require a tunable lowpass filter to remove the noise above distribution (Reference 5). You can compensate for this dif- the clock frequency. If the high-frequency lobes are present in the output, meaference in the bit-error-rate computation. You can get

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suring the noise amplitude with an rms meter can give misleading results. However, you can easily calculate the effective output noise power from the known output from each DAC. You can rely on the inherent accuracy of the noise generator in routine measurements, but it is wise to check it from time to time with a spectrum analyzer. Generating noise tunable to 100 MHz requires expensive ECL parts, fast DACs, and skill in laying out high-frequency circuits. If you need, say, 10-MHz noise, you can use common TTL parts and cheap DACs. You can implement the shift registers and FIR filters as an FPGA, yielding a more accurate noise generator than any current commercial generator. You could tune this generator down to zero frequency, and it could be cheaper than todays fixed-bandwidth units (Reference 6). e

sequences, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Volume C-20, No. 3, March 1971. 5. Napier, TM, and RA Peloso, A predictable performance wideband noise generator, The Proceedings of the International Telemetering Conference, 1990. 6. Digital Gaussian white-noise-generation system and method of use, US Patent No. 5,057,795, 1991.

Authors biography
Tom Napier graduated from Aberdeen University in Scotland with a BS in physics and an MS in electronics. He spent nine years developing spacecraft-communications equipment for the Signal Recovery Group of Aydin Corp and is now a consultant and writer.

References
1. Wolaver, Dan, and James Hanlent, Ensure the accuracy of bit-error-rate tests, Electronic Design, May 9, 1991. 2. Carlson, JR, Specifying and evaluating PCM bit synchronizers, Proceedings of the European Telemetry Conference, 1990. 3. Napier, Tom, Noise testing sets pitfalls for the unwary, EDN, June 24, 1993, pg 129. 4. Davies, Antony C, Properties of waveforms obtained by nonrecursive digital filtering of pseudorandom binary

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