Noise Analysis

Electrical Noise
– Electrical noise is defined as any undesirable electrical energy. Figure
57 shows the effect of noise on an electrical signal.

Figure 57: Effect of noise on a signal. (a) Without noise (b) With noise

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 Noise Analysis
– Noise can be categorised into two general categories:
• Correlated
• Uncorrelated

Correlated Noise:
– Correlated noise is noise that is correlated (mutually related) to the
signal and cannot present in a circuit unless there is an input signal.
No signal means no noise!.
– Correlated noise is produced by nonlinear amplification or mixing and
includes harmonic and IMD.

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4
 Noise Analysis
Uncorrelated Noise
– Uncorrelated noise present regardless of whether there is a signal
present or not.
– Uncorrelated noise can be subdivided into two general categories:
• External
• Internal
External Noise.
– External noise is noise that is generated outside the circuit or device.
There are three primary sources:
• Atmospheric
• Extraterrestrial
• Man-made

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 Noise Analysis
Atmospheric Noise
– Is naturally occurring electrical disturbances that originate within
Earth’s atmosphere.
– The source of the atmospheric noise is from the natural source such
as lightning and insignificant above 30 MHz.

Extraterrestrial noise
– It consists of electrical signals that originate from outside Earth’s
atmosphere and sometime called deep space noise. Extraterrestrial
noise originates from the Milky Way, other galaxies and the sun.
Extraterrestrial noise can be sub divided into two categories: solar
and cosmic noise.
• Solar noise generated directly from the sun’s heat in two parts, quiet
condition when a constant radiation intensity exists and high intensity
caused by sun spot activity and solar flare up repeats every 11 years.

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 Noise Analysis
• Cosmic noise sources are continuously distributed throughout the
galaxies and the source of the noise is located quiet far from the sun
and therefore their intensity is relatively small. Cosmic noise is often
called black body noise distributed fairly evenly throughout the sky.

Man Made Noise

– Man made noise is simply noise that is produced by man. The
predominant sources of man-made noise are spark-producing
mechanisms such as electric motors, automobile ignition system,
fluorescent lights and switching equipment.
– Man made noise is impulsive in nature and contains a wide range of
frequencies that are propagated through space in the same manner
as radio wave. Man made noise is most intense in the industrial area
and sometime called industrial noise.

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 Noise Analysis
Internal Noise
– Internal noise is electrical interference generated within a device or
circuit and there are three primary kinds of internally generated
noise:
• Thermal Noise
• Shot Noise
• Transit Noise
– Thermal Noise is associated with the rapid and random movement of
electrons within a conductor due to thermal agitation. Electrons
within the conductor carry a unit negative charge and the mean-
square velocity of an electron is proportional to the absolute
temperature.
– Each flight of an electron between collisions with molecules
constitutes a short pulse of current that develops a small voltage
across the resistive component of the conductor.

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 Noise Analysis
– Because this type of electron movement is totally random and in all
directions, the average voltage in the substance due to this
movement is 0 V dc. However such a random movement does
produce an ac component.
– The ac component produced from thermal agitation has several
names including thermal noise because it is temperature dependent,
Johnson noise after the man who related particle movement of
electron movement and white noise because the random movement
is at all frequencies.
– Johnson proved that thermal noise power is proportional to the
product of bandwidth and temperature. Noise power can be
expressed mathematically as:
N = KTB (1)

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 Noise Analysis
Where N = noise power (watts)
B = bandwidth (hertz)
K = Boltzmann’s proportionality constant (1.38×10-23 joules per kelvin)
T = absolute temperature (kelvin) (room temperature = 17 ºC or 290 K)
– Noise power in dBm is:
KTB
N ( dBm)  10 log
0.001

– To convert C to kelvin, simply add 273, thus T = C + 273.

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 Noise Analysis
– Shot Noise is caused by the random arrival of carriers (holes and
electrons) at the output element of an electronic devices, such as
diode, field-effect transistor or bipolar transistor. Shot noise is
randomly varying and superimposed onto any signal present.
– Transit-time noise is any modification to a stream of carriers as they
pass from the input to the output of a device (such as from the
emitter to the collector of a transistor produces an irregular and
random variation).
– Transit time noise in transistors is determined by carrier mobility, bias
voltage and transistor construction. Carriers travelling from emitter to
collector suffer from emitter time delays and base transit-time
delays.

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 Noise Analysis

Noise Voltage.
Figure below shows the equivalent circuit for a thermal noise source
where the internal resistance of the source RI is in series with the rms
noise voltage VN.

Noise source equivalent circuit. 12

 Noise Analysis
– For the maximum power transfer of noise power, the load
resistance R is made equal to RI. So that, the noise voltage dropped
across R is equal to half of the noise source. From equation 1 the
noise power (N) developed across the load resistor is equal to KTB.
Thus VN can be mathematically expressed as follows:
(VN / 2)2 VN2
N  KTB   (2)
R 4R
– Thus:

VN  4RKTB (3)

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 Noise Analysis
Example:
– For an electronic device operating at 17º C with a bandwidth of 10 kHz,
determine:
a) Thermal noise power in watts and dBm
b) Rms noise voltage for a 100  internal resistance and a 100  load
resistance.
Solution
a) Thermal noise power is:
N = KTB T(kelvin) = 17º C + 273º = 290 K B = 1×104 Hz
 N = (1.38×10-23)(290)(1×104) = 4×10-17 W.
In miliwatt:
N(mW) = 4×10-17/1×10-3 = 4×10-14 mW
In dBm : N(dBm) = 10logN(mW) = -134 dBm.

b) Vn  4 KTRB = 4(100)(4  10-17 ) = 0.1265 V

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 Noise Analysis
Signal-to-Noise Power Ratio
Signal-to-noise power ratio (S/N) is the ratio of the signal power level to
the noise power level. S/N can be expressed as:

S PS or S P
 (dB)  10 log S
N Pn N Pn

Where:
PS = signal power (watts)
Pn = noise power (watts)

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 Noise Analysis
Example:
For an amplifier with an output signal power of 10 W and an output noise
power of 0.01 W, determine the S/N
Solution:
S P 10 S
 S   1000 (dB)  10 log 1000  30dB
N Pn 0.01 N

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 Noise Analysis
Signal-to-noise power ratio can also be expressed in terms of voltage and
resistances:

S  Vs 2 / Rin 
(dB)  10 log  2 

N  Vn / Rout 

Where:
S/N = signal-to-noise power ratio (decibels)
Rin = input resistance (ohms)
Rout = output resistance (ohms)
Vs = signal voltage (volts)
Vn = noise voltage (volts)

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 Noise Analysis
If the input and output resistances of the amplifier, receiver or network
being evaluated are equal, the previous equation reduces to:

S  Vs 2 
(dB)  10 log  2 
N  Vn 
2
 Vs 
 10 log  
 Vn 

S  Vs 
(dB)  20 log  
N  Vn 

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 Noise Analysis
Example:
For an amplifier with an output signal voltage of 4 V, an output noise
voltage of 0.005 V, and an input and output resistance of 50 , determine
the signal-to-noise ratio:
Solution:

S V  4V
(dB)  20 log  s   20 log  58.06dB
N  Vn  0.005V

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 Noise Factor and Noise Figure
Noise Factor (F) and Noise Figure (NF) are figure of merits used to
indicate how much the S/N deteriorates as a signal passes through a
circuit or series of circuits. Noise factor is a ratio of input S/N to the
output S/N. Mathematically:
input signal-to-noise ratio
F
output signal-to-noise ratio
Noise figure is simply the noise factor in dB:
input signal-to-noise ratio
NF = 10log F  10 log
output signal-to-noise ratio

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 Noise Factor and Noise Figure
Example:
For a nonideal amplifier and the following parameters, determine:
Input signal power = 210-10W
Input noise power = 210-18W
Power gain = 1,000,000
Internal noise (Nd) = 610-12W

(a) Input S/N ratio in dB

(b) Output S/N ratio in dB
(c) Noise factor and noise figure

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 Noise Factor and Noise Figure
Solution
(a) The input S/N ratio is:

S 2 1010W
  100,000,000
N 2 1018W
S
(dB)  10 log 100,000,000  80dB
N
(b) Output S/N ratio is the sum of the internal noise and the amplified noise:

N out  100,000,000(2 10 18 )  6 10 12W

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 Noise Factor and Noise Figure
The output signal power is simply the product of the input power and the
power gain:

Pout  100,000,000(2 10 10 )  200W

The output S/N is:

S 200 106W
  25,000,000
N 2 10 12W
S
(dB)  10 log 25,000,000  74dB
N

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 Noise Factor and Noise Figure
Solution
(c) The noise factor is:
S
N input 100,000,000
F  4
S 25,000,000
N output

The noise figure is:

NF  10 log 4  6dB

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 Cascaded Noise Figure
When two or more amplifiers are cascaded as shown below, the total
noise factor is the accumulation of the individual noise factors. Friiss’
equation can be used to calculate the overall noise figure of the
cascaded amplifier:
F2  1 F3  1 Fn  1
FT  F1   
A1 A1 A2 A1 A2 .... An
FT  total noise factor for n cascaded amplifier
F1  amplifier 1 noise factor
F2  amplifier 2 noise factor
F3  amplifier 3 noise factor
Fn  amplifier n noise factor
A1  amplifier 1 power gain
A2  amplifier 2 power gain
An  amplifier n power gain
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 Cascaded Noise Figure
For passive component with loss L, we have:
1
G and F=L
L
Previous equation allows for the calculation of the noise figure of a
general cascaded system and it is clear that the gain and noise figure in
the first stage are critical in achieving a low overall noise figure.
Therefore, it is very desirable to have a low noise figure and high gain in
the first stage.

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 Cascaded Noise Figure
Example:
For three cascaded amplifier stages, each amplifier has a noise figure of
3dB and power gain of 10 dB, determine the total noise figure.
Solution:
F2  1 F3  1 Fn  1
FT  F1   
A1 A1 A2 A1 A2 An
2 1 2 1
2   2.11 Convert
10 100 To absolute
Value first!!!
Common
NFT  10 log 2.11  3.24dB mistake

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 Noise Temperature
Equivalent noise temperature (Te) is a hypothetical value that cannot be
directly measured. Te is a convenient parameter often used rather than
noise figure in VHF, UHF, microwave and satellite receivers. The lower
the equivalent noise temperature is, the better the quality of a
receiver.Mathematically, Te at the input of the receiver can be expressed
as:
Te  T ( F  1)
Where:
Te  equivalent noise temperature(kelvin)
T  enviromentaltemperature (reference value of 290K)
F  noise factor (unitless)

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 Noise Temperature
Example:
(a) Noise figure for an equivalent noise temperature of 75 K
(b) Equivalent noise temperature for a noise figure of 6 dB.
Solution:
T 75
(a) F  1 e  1  1258
.  1dB
T 290

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(b) NF 6
F  antilog  antilog  10  4
10
10 10
 Te  T ( F  1)  290(4  1)  870 K

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