INTERSYMBOL INTERFERENCE (ISI)

 Intersymbol Interference
 ISI on Eye Patterns
Eeng 360 2
 Intersymbol Interference
 Intersymbol interference (ISI) occurs when a pulse spreads out in such a way that
it interferes with adjacent pulses at the sample instant.

 Example: assume polar NRZ line code. The channel outputs are shown as spreaded
(width Tb becomes 2Tb) pulses shown (Spreading due to bandlimited channel
characteristics).
Channel Input Channel Output
Pulse width Tb Pulse width Tb

Data 1

 Tb 0 Tb  Tb 0 Tb

Data 0
 Tb 0 Tb  Tb 0 Tb

Eeng 360 3
 Baseband binary data transmission system.

 ISIarises when the channel is dispersive

 Frequency limited -> time unlimited -> ISI
 Time limited -> bandwidth unlimited

p(t)
 Intersymbol Interference
 For the input data stream:
1 0 1 1 0 1
A
0 Tb 2Tb 3Tb 4Tb 5Tb

 The channel output is the superposition of each bit’s output:

0 Tb 2Tb 3Tb 4Tb 5Tb

Eeng 360 5
 ISI Example
sequence sent 1 0 1
sequence received 1 1(!) 1

Signal received

Threshold

0 t

-3T -2T -T 0 T 2T 3T 4T 5T

Sequence of three pulses (1, 0, 1)

sent at a rate 1/T
 Intersymbol Interference
 If the rectangular multilevel pulses are filtered improperly as they pass through a
communications system, they will spread in time, and the pulse for each symbol may
be smeared into adjacent time slots and cause Intersymbol Interference.

 How can we restrict BW and at the same time not introduce ISI? 3 Techniques.
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 Nyquist’s First Method for Zero ISI
 There will be NO ISI and the bandwidth requirement will be minimum (Optimum
Filtering) if the transmit and receive filters are designed so that the overall transfer function
He(f) is:
1  f  sin  f s t 1
He  f    f  e
h t   Where fs 
fs  s  f st Ts

 This type of pulse will allow signalling at a baud rate of D=1/Ts=2B (for Binary R=1/Ts=2B)
where B is the absolute bandwidth of the system.

He(f)
1/fs

f
-fs/2 0 fs/2

fs
Absolute bandwidth is: B  MINIMUM BANDWIDTH
2
Signalling Rate is: D =1 Ts 2 B Pulses/sec Eeng 360 8
 Eye Diagram
 Eye diagram is a means of evaluating the
quality of a received “digital waveform”

By quality is meant the ability to correctly recover
symbols and timing
 Eye diagrams reveal the impact of ISI and
noise
 Eye diagram can also give an estimate of
achievable BER
 Vertical and Horizontal Eye
Openings
 The vertical eye opening or noise
margin is related to the SNR, and
thus the BER

A large eye opening corresponds
to a low BER
 The horizontal eye opening relates
the jitter and the sensitivity of the
sampling instant to jitter

The red brace indicates the range
of sample instants with good eye
opening
 ISI on Eye Patterns
 The amount of ISI can be seen on an oscilloscope using an
Eye Diagram or Eye pattern.

Distortion
Amplitude

Noise
Margin

Tb Extension
Beyond Tb is
ISI
Time (Tb)
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 Eye Diagram
 The open part of the signal represents the time
that we can safely sample the signal with
fidelity