EEE 360: Communication Systems I

Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)

TDM is the time interleaving of samples from several sources so that the
information from these sources can be transmitted serially over a single
communication channel.

Figure 3-35 illustrates TDM applied to three analog sources that are
multiplexed over a PCM system.

At the receiver the decommutator (sampler) has to be synchronized with the

incoming waveform so that the PAM samples corresponding to source-1 will
appear on the channel-1 output.

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

Frame Synchronization

Frame synchronization is needed at the TDM receiver so that the received

multiplexed data can be sorted and directed to appropriate output channel.
Frame sync is provided to the receiver in two different ways:

) provided to the de-multiplexer circuit by sending a frame sync

signal from the transmitter over a separate channel

) derive the frame sync from the TDM signal itself

Figure 3.36 show that frame sync can be multiplexed along with the
information words in an N channel TDM system.

Figure 3-37 shows that the frame sync is recovered from the corrupted TDM
signal by using a frame synchronizer circuit which crosscorrelates the
regenerated TDM signal with the expected unique sync word vector s =
(s1,s2,…,sK).

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

Synchronous and Asynchronous Lines

For bit sync, data transmission systems are designed to operate with either
synchronous or asynchronous serial data lines.

¾ In a synchronous system, each device is designed so that its internal clock

is relatively stable for a long period of time and it is synchronized to the
master clock

¾In an asynchronous system, the timing is precise only for the bits within
each character (word). Also called start-stop signaling.

Show
Example 3-6 : Design of a Time-Division Multiplexer (pages 201-202)

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

TDM Hierarchy

In practice TDM(s) may be grouped into two:

1. multiplexers used in conjunction with digital computer systems to

merge digital signals from several sources

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

2. used by common carriers to combine different sources into high-

speed digital TDM signal for transmission.

Standards adopted by North America and Japan are different from those that
have been adopted in other parts of the world. North America/Japan
standards were first adopted by AT&T.

Later an other set of standards were adopted by CCITT under the auspieces
of ITU.

North America TDM hierarchy is as shown in Fig. 3-40.

The corresponding CCITT TDM standard that is used elsewhere in the world
is as shown in Fig. 3-41.

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

With the development of high-bit rate fiber optic systems, it has become
apparent that the original TDM standards are not adequate. A new TDM
standard called SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) was proposed by
Belcore and has evolved into an international standard. This SONET
standard is shown in Table 3-10.

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003
EEE 360: Communication Systems I

The telephone industry is moving towards an all-digital network that

integrates voice and data over a single telephone line from each user to
the telephone company equipment. This approach is called the Integrated
Service Digital Network (ISDN). The standard implementation of ISDN
services uses an overall data rate of 144 k bits/s which is broken down
into two B-channels (64 k bits/s) and one D-channel (16 k bits/s). The
two B-channels carry PCM-encoded telephone conversation or data and
the D-channel is used for signaling to set up calls, disconnect calls, and
route data.

Lecture Notes Prepared by Dr. Erhan A. Ince

©2003