Introduction

• Noise is a general term which is used to describe an unwanted signal which affects a wanted signal.
• Noise extends in various forms across the frequency spectrum, although not always in the same amplitude.
• In electronic communication systems, noise is an error or undesired random disturbance of a useful
information signal.

Important Concepts:
 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR),
 signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) and
 signal-to-noise plus interference ratio (SNIR) measures.

• Also, noise is distinguished from distortion with measures like:

 signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SINAD)
 total harmonic distortion plus noise (THD+N) measures.

• While noise is generally unwanted, it can serve a useful purpose in some applications, such as random
number generation or dither.

1
 Nature of Electrical Noise
• Noise is caused by the small current and voltage fluctuations that are generated
internally.
• Noise is basically due to the discrete nature of electrical charges.
 Thermal fluctuations: often an important source of noise in
electronic circuits, e.g. in photodiode preamplifiers
 Other
electronic noise, e.g. flicker noise: from various sources;
may critically depend on parts used
 Quantum noise: often important in optical devices,
e.g. shot noise in photodetection or intensity and phase noise
in lasers
 Mechanical noise: e.g. in the form of vibrations which can
couple to optical or electronic parameters.
 Electronic Noise Measurements
 Noise in electrical signals is often measured with RF Spectrum Analyzers.
 Such measurements are prone to possible errors:
 confusion between 3-dB bandwidth and effective noise bandwidth
 statistical effects from averaging logarithmic (dBm) values
 etc
 Correct noise measurements with an RF spectrum analyzer require a decent
understanding of how such a device works.
 Noise Classification
Noise

External Noise
Internal Noise

Thermal Transit- Miscellaneous

Shot Noise
Noise Time Noise Noise

Atmospheric Extraterrestrial Man-made

Noise Noise Noise
 Thermal noise
• Due to random motion of electrons.
• It is ubiquitous (resistors, speakers, microphones, antennas, …)
• It is directly proportional to absolute temperature.
• White noise is Frequency independent up to 1013 Hz (Noise is called "white" when it has
the same intensity at every frequency. Its name is derived by analogy to light, which
is called "white" when it contains all visible frequencies..

𝑣 𝑛=√ 4 𝑘𝐵 𝑇𝑅∆ 𝑓
• where
• Pn is the thermal noise power in watts.
• Δf is the bandwidth in hertz over which the noise is measured,
• , is Boltzmann’s constant in joules per kelvin = 1.3x10 -23J/K,
• T is the resistor's absolute temperature in kelvins, and R is the resistor value in ohms
(Ω),
• Notice that this is independent of the noise generating resistance,
• vnis the root mean square (RMS) of the voltage, , is the root mean square value of the
current.
 Transit time noise

• Transit time is the duration of time that it takes for a current carrier such as a hole or current
to move from the input to the output.
• Semiconductor devices are very tiny, so the distances involved during carrier transition are
minimal.
• The time it takes for the current carriers to move a short distance is finite.
• At low frequencies this time is negligible. But when the frequency of operation is high and the
signal being processed is the magnitude as the transit time, then problem can occur.
• The transit time shows up as a kind of random noise within the device, and is directly
proportional to the frequency of operation.
• If the time taken by the electrons to travel from emitter to collector in a transistor becomes
comparable to the period of the signal being amplified, that is, at frequencies above VHF and
beyond, the transit-time effect takes place and noise input impedance of the transistor
decreases.
• From the frequency at which this effect becomes significant, it increases with frequency and
quickly dominates other sources of noise.
• The random noise occurs due to the movement of charge carriers during the transit time. It is
directly proportional to the frequency, hence more significant at higher frequencies.
 Shot noise
• Shot noise is due to the random arrivals of electron packets at the potential barrier of
forward biased P/N junctions.
• It is always associated with the a dc current flow in diodes and BJTs.
• It is frequency independent (white noise) well into the GHz region.
• Since shot noise is a Poisson process due to the finite charge of an electron, one can
compute the root mean square current fluctuations as being of a magnitude.

• where q is the elementary charge of an electron = 1.60217662 × 10 -19 coulombs,

• Δf is the single-sided bandwidth in hertz over which the noise is considered,
• and I is the DC current flowing.
• If this noise current is fed through a resistor (R), a noise voltage () will be generated

• Coupling this noise through a capacitor, one could supply a noise power (P) to a matched
load.
 Flicker noise

• Flicker noise is due to contamination and

crystal defects.
• It is found in all active devices.
• It is inversely proportional to frequency
(also called 1/f noise) .
• DC current in carbon resistors cause flicker
noise.
• Metal film resistors have no flicker noise.
 Other Internal Noise
• Partition noise
 occurs whenever current has to divide between two or more paths, and results from the random
fluctuations in the division.
 It would be expected, therefore, that a diode would be less noisy than a transistor (all other factors
being equal) If the third electrode draws current (i.e.., the base current).
 It is for this reason that the inputs of microwave receivers are often taken directly to diode mixers.
• Burst noise or Popcorn Noise
 consists of sudden step-like transitions between two or more discrete voltage or current levels, as
high as several hundred microvolts, at random and unpredictable times.
 Each shift in offset voltage or current lasts for several milliseconds to seconds.
 It is also known a popcorn noise for the popping or crackling sounds it produces in audio circuits.
• Transistor Thermal Noise
 caused by the emitter, base and collector internal resistances.
 Out of these three regions, the base region contributes maximum thermal noise.
 External Noise
Atmospheric noise
• Atmospheric noise or static noise is caused by lightning discharges in thunderstorms and other natural
electrical disturbances occurring in the atmosphere.
• These electrical impulses are random in nature.
• Hence the energy is spread over the complete frequency spectrum used for radio communication.
• Atmospheric noise accordingly consists of spurious radio signals with components spread over a wide
frequency range.
• It is propagated over the earth in the same way as the desired radio waves of the same frequencies, so that a
given receiving point, the receiving antenna picks up not only the signal but also the static from all the
thunderstorms, local or remote.
• The field strength of atmospheric noise varies approximately inversely with the frequency.
• Thus large atmospheric noise is generated in low and medium frequency (broadcast) bands while very little
noise is generated in the VHF and UHF bands.
• Further VHF and UHF components of noise are limited to the line-of-sight (less than about 80 Km) propagation.
• For these two-reasons, the atmospheric noise becomes less severe at Frequencies exceeding about 30MHz.
 Man-made noise

• Man-made noise or industrial noise is produced by sources such as:

 automobiles and aircraft ignition,
 electrical motors and switch gears,
 leakage from high voltage lines,
 fluorescent lights,
 numerous other heavy electrical machines.
• Such noises are produced by the arc discharge taking place during operation
of these machines.
• Such man-made noise is most intensive in industrial and densely populated
areas.
• Man-made noise in such areas far exceeds all other sources of noise in the
frequency range extending from about 1 MHz to 600 MHz
 Extra-terrestrial noise

• There are numerous types of extra-terrestrial noise or space noises depending on their sources.
• However, these may be put into following two subgroups.
 Solar Noise: This is the electrical noise emanating from the sun. Under quite conditions, there is a steady
radiation of noise from the sun.
 This results because sun is a large body at a very high temperature (exceeding 6000°C on the surface), and
radiates electrical energy in the form of noise over a very wide frequency spectrum including the spectrum
used for radio communication.
 The intensity produced by the sun varies with time. In fact, the sun has a repeating 11-Year noise cycle.
 During the peak of the cycle, the sun produces some amount of noise that causes tremendous radio signal
interference, making many frequencies unusable for communications.
 Cosmic noise: Distant stars are also suns and have high temperatures. These stars, therefore, radiate noise in
the same way as our sun.
 The noise received from these distant stars is thermal noise (or black body noise) and is distributing almost
uniformly over the entire sky.
 We also receive noise from the center of our own galaxy (The Milky Way) from other distant galaxies and
from other virtual point sources such as quasars and pulsars.
 Other external noise include:

• Intermodulation noise, caused when signals of different frequencies share the

same non-linear medium.
• Crosstalk, phenomenon in which a signal transmitted in one circuit or channel
of a transmission systems creates undesired interference onto a signal in
another channel.
• Interference, this involves the modification or disruption of a signal travelling
along a medium
 Effects of Noise on systems

• Noise interferes with good signals to cause:

Computer malfunctions such as shutdowns, computer locks, download gaps, network
problems, data drops, internet errors, etc
Power quality issues such as equipment failure, resets, voltage drops, etc
Inaccurate readings in measuring instruments
Video quality issues such as display bars and stripes, distorted pictures, etc
Audio: sound with hamming and buzzing noises
AC drive burnouts and errors
Errors in precision instruments
 Signal to Noise Ratio
• Signal power is often measured in dBm (decibels relative to 1 milliwatt).
• Noise power in a resistor at room temperature, in dBm, is given by
•
• where the factor of 1000 is present because the power is given in milliwatts, rather than
watts.
• This equation can be simplified by separating the constant parts from the
bandwidth:
•
• Noise is usually expressed as a power because the received signal is also expressed
in terms of power.
• By knowing the signal to noise powers the signal to noise ratio can be computed.
• Rather than express the signal to noise ratio as simply a number, it can be
expressed in terms of decibels.
•
 Noise Figure

• Noise Figure or Noise Factor F is defined as the ratio of the signal-to noise
power supplied to the input terminals of a receiver or amplifier to the signal-to-
noise power to the output or load resistor.
• The Noise Figure F can be computed with the expression

• In a practical receiver, the output signal-to-noise power will be lower than the
input value, and so the noise figure will exceed 1.
• However, the noise figure will be 1 for an ideal receiver, which introduces no
noise of its own.
• The noise figure may be expressed as an actual ratio or in decibels.
• The noise factor (a linear term) is more often expressed as the noise figure (in
decibels) using the conversion:
 Noise Temperature

• Noise temperature is one way of expressing the level of available noise power introduced by a
component or source.
• The relation between noise figure and equivalent noise temperature is:
•
• Where F is noise figure, T0 is customarily taken to be room temperature= 170C= 290K and Teq is the equivalent noise
temperature of the system.
• Normally, the noise temperature of an amplifier is commonly measured using the Y-factor method.
• If there are multiple amplifiers in cascade, the noise temperature of the cascade can be calculated using
the Friis equation:
•
• Where is the resulting noise temperature referred to the input, is the noise temperature of the first component in
the cascade, is the noise temperature of the second component in the cascade, is the noise temperature of the third
component in the cascade, is the power gain of the first component in the cascade, is the power gain of the second
component in the cascade.
• Noise figure of a cascaded system
F = F + (F - 1)/G + (F - 1)/G G + … + (F - 1)/G G … G
 Noise Mitigation

Faraday cage –
 A Faraday cage enclosing a circuit can be used to isolate the circuit from external noise sources.
 A faraday cage cannot address noise sources that originate in the circuit itself or those carried in on
its inputs, including the power supply.
Capacitive coupling –
 Capacitive coupling allows an AC signal from one part of the circuit to be picked up in another part
through interaction of electric fields.
 Where coupling is unintended, the effects can be addressed through improved circuit layout and
grounding.
Ground loops –
 When grounding a circuit, it is important to avoid ground loops.
 Ground loops occur when there is a voltage difference between two ground connections.
 A good way to fix this is to bring all the ground wires to the same potential in a ground bus.
Shielding cables –
 A shielded cable can be thought of as a Faraday cage for wiring and can protect the wires from
unwanted noise in a sensitive circuit.
 The shield must be grounded to be effective.
 Grounding the shield at only one end can avoid a ground loop on the shield.
 Noise Mitigation Cont.
Twisted pair wiring –
 Twisting wires very tightly together in a circuit will dramatically reduce electromagnetic noise.
 Twisting the wires decreases the loop size in which a magnetic field can run through to produce a
current between the wires.
 Even if the wires are twisted very tightly, there may still be small loops somewhere between them,
but because they are twisted the magnetic field going through the smaller loops induces a current
flowing in opposite ways in each wire and thus cancelling them out.
Notch filters –
 Notch filters or band-rejection filters are essential when eliminating a specific noise frequency.
 For example, in some countries (notably the USA and Canada) power lines within a building run at 60
Hz.
 Sometimes a sensitive circuit will pick up this 60 Hz noise through some unwanted antenna (could be
as simple as a wire in the circuit).
 Running the output through a notch filter at 60 Hz will amplify the desired signal without amplifying
the 60 Hz noise.
 So in a sense the noise will be lost at the output of the filter.