Binary Codes

By,
Ms.T.Kalaiselvi, AP(SLG-I) / CSE
 Binary Code
A binary code is just an assignment of
information to bit patterns.
 Binary Codes
• Electronic digital systems use signals that have two
distinct values and circuit elements that have two
stable states.
• Digital systems represent and manipulate not only
binary numbers, but also many other discrete
elements of information.
• Any discrete element of information distinct among a
group of quantities can be represented by a binary
code.
• Binary codes merely change the symbols, not the
meaning of the elements of information that they
represent.
 Binary Codes

• To represent a group of 2n distinct elements in a

binary code requires a minimum of n bits.
• There is no maximum number of bits that may be
used for a binary code.
 Binary Codes for Decimal Numbers

• A set of n-bit string in which different bit strings

represent different numbers or other things is
called a code.
• A particular combination of n bit values is called
a code word.
• A code that uses n-bit strings need not contain 2n
valid code words.
 Binary Codes for Decimal Numbers

• The usual interpretation of a binary number is as

defined according to the definition of a number in
in base-2 system.
• There are, however, alternate methods used to
encode numeric data into binary bit patterns.
Table 2-9 in the course text presents five such
codes. These are BCD, 2421, Excess-3,
Biquinary (5043210) and lastly the “1-out-of-10”
code.
Binary Codes for Decimal Numbers
 Binary Codes for Decimal Numbers

• It is important to note that this table presents

binary codes and not binary numbers.
• A binary number is mathematically defined,
while a binary code is just an assignment of
numeric values to bit patterns.
 Binary Codes for Decimal Numbers

• Each such assignment in table 2-9 does have

some particular property associated with it that
makes it a reasonable method of assignment.
• For example, a BCD number is just a natural
binary encoding of the decimal digits from 0 to 9
on four bits.
• Therefore a string of bits is grouped into groups
of four bits, and interpreted as a string of decimal
digits.
 Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD)

• a BCD number is just a natural binary encoding

of the decimal digits from 0 to 9 on four bits.

0101 0111
59 in BCD (0 ~ 99)
because there are unused code words
87 in normal unsigned binary number (0 ~ 255)
 Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD)

• Binary-Coded Decimal is a weighted code

because each decimal digit can be obtained from
its code word by assigning a fixed weight to each
code-word bit.
• The weights for the BCD bits are 8, 4, 2, and 1,
and for this reason the code is sometimes called
the 8421 code.
 2421 code

• This code has the advantage that it is self-

complementing, that is, the code word for the 9s’
complement of any digit may be obtained by
complementing the individual bits of the digit’s
code word.

0010 = 2
9s’complement of 2 can be obtained by complementing
individual bits
1101 = (2+4+0+1) = 7
 Excess-3 code

• This code is also self-complementing like 2421

code.
• Although this code is not weighted, it has an
arithmetic relationship with the BCD code.
• The code word for each decimal digit is the
corresponding BCD code word plus 0011 2.
0010 = 2 in BCD
+ 00112
= 0101 = 2 in excess-3
 biquinary code
• This is a 7-bit code.
• The first two bits in this code indicate the range 0~4 or 5~9, and
the last five bits indicate which of the five numbers in the selected
range is represented.
0100100 = 2
1000100 = 7
• The redundant bits gave this code the error-detecting property.
• The biquinary code has the property that if any single bit is
corrupted as the result of (say) a circuit malfunction, the error can
be recognized.
• Note that for all values from 0 to 9, the biquinary encoding has
precisely two “1” bits and five “0” bits. Obviously the corruption
of any one bit will result in either one or three “1” bits and can be
detected on that basis.
 1-out-of-10 code

• This code is is the sparsest encoding of decimal

digits, using 10 out of 1024 possible 10-bit code
words.
10000 00000 = 0
01000 00000 = 1
00100 00000 = 2
• The redundant bits gave this code the error-
detecting property.
 Binomial Coefficients
• The number of different ways to choose m items
from a set of n items is given by a binomial
coefficient, denoted by n whose value is
n!/(m!*(n-m)!) m

16
for a 4-bit decimal code, there are different ways to
10
choose 10 out of 16 4-bit code words, and 10!
ways to assign each different choice to the 10
digits. So there are
(16!/(10!*(16-10)!))*10! Or 29059430400
different 4-bit decimal codes.
 Gray Code

• Gray code is a code where only one bit changes

at a time while traversing from 0 to any decimal
number in sequence.
• This is a useful property when converting analog
values into digital values, since it eliminates the
problem of misinterpreting asynchronous changes
to bits between valid values.
 Gray Code
• What value will the encoder produce if the disk is
positioned right on the theoretical boundary?
 Gray Code
• The encoding-disk problem can be solved by devising a digital
code in which only one bit changes between each pair of
successive code words. Such a code is called a Gray code.
Gray Code
 Gray Code
Two ways to construct a Gray code with any
number of bits:
• Reflected code defined recursively
• From binary code
 Gray Code
Gray code is defined recursively using the following rules:

• A 1-bit Gray code has two code words, 0 and 1.

• The first 2n code words of an (n+1)-bit Gray code equal
the code words of an n-bit Gray code, written in order
with a leading 0 appended.
• The last 2n code words of an (n+1)-bit Gray code equal
the code words of an n-bit Gray code, written in reverse
order with a leading 1 appended.
 Gray Code
Gray code is defined from the binary code using the
following rules:

• The bits of an n-bit binary or Gray-code code-word are

numbered from right to left, from 0 to n-1.
• Bit i of a Gray-code code-word is 0 if bits i and i+1 of
the corresponding binary code word are the same,
else bit i is 1.
(When i+1=n, bit n of the binary code word is
considered to be 0.)
 Character Codes

• Many applications of digital computers require the

handling of data not only of numbers, but also of letters.
• The most commonly used character code is ASCII (the
American Standard Code for Information Interchange).
• ASCII represents each character with a 7-bit string,
yielding a total of 128 characters.
• The code contains the uppercase and lower case
alphabet, numeral, punctuation, and various nonprinting
control characters.
ASCII Code
 Other Codes

• Characters can be encoded according to variety

standards:
– Baudot code uses 5 bits; used for teletype
transmission
– ASCII (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) code uses 7 bits; used in PCs.
– EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal
Interchange Code) uses 8 bits; used by IBM
mainframes. It is an extension of BCD code.
– Unicode and ISO10646 use 16bits; Windows NT
supports Unicode.
 Codes for detecting and correcting errors

• An error in a digital system is the corruption of data from its

correct value to some other value.
• i.e., a change of some bits from 0 to 1 or vice versa.
• During the processing or transmission of digital data a noise may
change some bits from 0 to 1 or vice versa.
• A short duration noise can affect only a single bit causes a single-
bit error.
• A long duration noise can affect two or more bits causes a multi-
bit error.
 Codes for detecting and correcting errors

• Error-detecting codes normally add extra information to the data.

• In general, error-detecting codes contains redundant code.
• That is a code that uses n-bit strings need not contain 2 n valid code
words.
• An error-detecting code has the property that corrupting or
garbling a code word will likely produce a bit string that is not a
code word.
• Thus errors in a bit string can be detected by a simple rule - if it is
not a code word it contains an error.
 Parity check
• One of the most common ways to achieve error detection is by
means of a parity bit.
• A parity bit is an extra bit included with a message to make the
total number of 1’s transmitted either odd or even.
• If an odd parity is adopted, the P bit is chosen such that the total
number of 1’s is odd.
 Two dimensional codes
• LRC: Longitudinal Redundancy Checking
– LRC adds an additional character, the Block Check Character
(BCC) to the end of the message or block of data. The BCC uses parity on
each bit position for each character in the message; in other words, by
determining parity on the first bit of each character and setting the first bit
of the BCC to that value; then determining parity on the second bit of each
character, etc.
– Has an improved error detection rate of more than 98%.
Letter ASCII Parity Bit
D 1000100 1
A 1000001 1
T 1010100 0
A 1000001 1
BCC 1101111 1
 Other codes
• Hamming codes - forward error correcting code
• CRC - cyclic-redundancy-check
• Checksum
 Other codes
• CRC - cyclic-redundancy-check
– This method is used for most network error detection today. An 8, 16, 24 or 32 bit
number is added to the end of the data. Known as CRC-8, CRC-16, CRC-24 or
CRC-32 based on the number of bits used.
– All of the data in the message is processed according to a mathematical algorithm
(A polynomial is divided by a prime number resulting in a quotient and a remainder.
Uses a "linear feedback shift register", normally implemented with hardware to
generate a unique 16 or 32 bit remainder based on the data that was sent. ) The
remainder is transmitted as the CRC code. The receiver processes the incoming
data using the same algorithm and then compares it’s CRC with the one transmitted.
If they are the same, the data must be correct.
 CRC-16 detects 99.99% errors; that is 1 in 10,000 errors goes undetected.
 CRC-32 is extremely proficient in detecting errors; approximately 1 in 1014
errors go undetected.
• Checksum
– A checksum is calculated by adding up the decimal value of each character in the
message, dividing the sum by 255 and using the remainder as the checksum to be
transmitted with the message.
 Digital Encoding of Digital Data
• Unipolar (the voltage always positive or negative, 0v for 0 and 5v for 1)
• Bipolar (fewer errors than unipolar signaling as changing the polarity of a
current/voltage is more difficult than changing its magnitude, -5v for 0, +5v for 1)
• RZ (return to zero)
• NRZ (non return to zero)
• NRZ-L (NRZ, level)
• NRZ-I (NRZ, invert on ones)
• Biphase (all of the biphase techniques require at least one transition per bit time and
may have as many as two transitions.
• Manchester (used in Ethernet LANs) - The midbit transition
serves as a clocking mechanism and also as data.
• 0 - a high-to-low represents a 0, and
• 1 - A low-to-high represents a 1.
• Differential Manchester (used in Token-ring LANs) - The
midbit transition is used only to provide clocking.
• 0 - A transition at the beginning of the bit period represents 0, and
• 1 - an absence of a transition at the beginning of the bit period represents 1.
Serial Line codes
Serial Line codes
Serial Line codes