Thursday, October 24, 2013

Difference between Encoding, Encryption & Scrambling

Encoding (8b/10b):

  • to make DC voltage balance by keeping numbers of 1's and 0's equal (using disparity)
  • to recov the clock in the receiver by making more transitions in serial data 
  • to reduce the EMI
  • doesn't need scrambling 
  • transmission overhead is 25% ((2/8)*100)

Encoding (64b/66b):

  • just inserts 2 bit preamble to make 64b -> 66b, which acts as bounday comma
  • needs scrambling for DC balance, clock recovery at receiver and to reduce EMI
  • transmission overhead is 3.125%

Encryption is for security reason. It has a key, which sender and receiver know.




2 comments:

  1. Rapidio and USB 3.0 uses 8b/10b econding but it uses scrambler and descrambling

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    Replies
    1. Saravanan,

      Thanks, you are right, even the PCI-SIG says same thing on PCI-Express: Along with 8b/10b encoding, Scrambling is also used there. Scrambling is to enhance the DC wander capacity, which is more compared to 8b/10b encoding. But some of the encoded symbols can't be scrambled. This tells that encoding is a must and scrambling is optional.

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