CHAPTER 6

NOISE
 INTRODUCTION

 Noise is random energy that interfere

with the information signal.
 Noise may be defined as any unwanted
introduction of energy tending to
interfere with the proper reception and
reproduction of transmitted signal.
 In radio receiver, noise may produce hiss
in the loudspeaker output.
 Noise can limit the range of systems.
 It affects the sensitivity of the receiver.
 NOISE
 Electrical noise – any undesirable that falls within
the passband of the signal.
 Figure 4 show the effect of noise on electrical
noise.
 2 general categories
• Correlated noise – implies relationship between
the signal and the noise, exist only when signal
is present.
• Uncorrelated noise – present at all time,
whether there is signal or not.
 Classification of
Uncorrelated Noise
NOISE

EXTERNAL INTERNAL

ATMOSPHERIC INDUSTRIAL THERMAL SHOT

NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE

EXTRATERRESTRIAL
NOISE
Figure 6.1
 ATMOSPHERIC NOISE
 Caused by lightning discharges in thunderstorms and other
natural electric disturbances occurring in the atmosphere.
 Consist of spurious radio signal with components distributed
over a wide range of frequencies.
 It propagates over the earth in the same way as ordinary
radio waves of the same frequencies.
 Become less severe at frequencies above 30MHz because:
• The higher frequencies are limited to line-of-sight
propagation.
• Nature of the mechanism generating this noise is such
that very little of it is created in the VHF range and
above.
 EXTRATERRESTRIAL NOISE
 SOLAR NOISE:
• Normal condition, there is a constant noise radiation
from the sun, simply because large body at a very high
frequency.
• Radiates over a very broad frequency spectrum.
 COSMIC NOISE:
• Stars radiate RF noise in the same manner of sun.
• The noise received is called thermal noise and
distributed fairly uniformly over the entire sky.
 INDUSTRIAL NOISE
 Between 1 to 600 MHz, the intensity noise
made by humans easily outstrips that
created by any other source to the
receiver.
 Sources such as: automobile, aircraft,
electric motors and other heavy machine.
 The nature of industrial noise is so
variable that it is difficult to analyze.
 SHOT NOISE
 Caused by the random arrival of carriers
at the output element of an electronic
device.
 First observed in the anode current of a
vacuum-tube amplifier.
 The current carriers are not moving in
continuous steady flow.
 Randomly varying and superimposed onto
any signal present.
 Sometimes called transistor noise.
 THERMAL NOISE
 Is associated with the rapid and random
movement of electrons within a conductor
due to thermal agitation.
 Present in all electronic component and
communications systems.
 Referred as white noise.
 Is a form of additive noise, cannot be
eliminated.
 It increases in intensity with the number
of devices in a circuit.
 Thermal noise power is proportional to the
product of bandwidth and temperature.
 Mathematically, noise power is

N=KTB

N = noise power,
K=Boltzmann’s constant (1.38x10-23 J/K)
B = bandwidth,
T = absolute temperature (Kelvin)(17oC or
290K)
 NOISE VOLTAGE
Noise Source
• Figure 4.2 shows the equivalent
VN/2
circuit for a thermal noise source.
RI
• Internal resistance RI in series VN  4RkTB
VN R VN/2
with the rms noise voltage VN.
• For the worst condition, the load
resistance R = RI , noise voltage
dropped across R = half the noise Figure 6.2 : Noise source
source (VR=VN/2) and equivalent circuit
The mathematical expression :
• From the final equation The
noise power PN , developed across
N  KTB 
VN / 2 
2

VN2
the load resistor = KTB R 4R
VN2  4 RKTB
VN  4 RKTB
 Example 1
Convert the following temperatures
to kelvin:
a) 100°C
b) 0°C
c) -10°C

T=a°C+273°C
 Example 2

Calculate the thermal noise power

available from any resistor at room
temperature (290K) for a bandwidth of
1 MHz. Calculate also the
corresponding noise voltage, given that
R = 50.
 Example 3
For an electronic device operating at
a temperature of 17oC with a
bandwidth of 10 kHz, determine
a)Thermal noise power in watts and dBm
b)rms noise noise voltage for a 100 
internal resistance and 100  load
resistance.
 Example 4

Two resistor of 20k  and 50 k are

at room temperature (290K). For a
bandwidth of 100kHz, calculate the
thermal noise voltage generated by
1. each resistor
2. the two resistor in series
3. the two resistor in parallel
 Correlated Noise
 Form of internal noise that is correlated
to the signal and cannot be present in a
circuit unless there is a signal.
 Produced by nonlinear amplification.
 All circuits are nonlinear therefore, they
all produce nonlinear distortion.
 Nonlinear distortion creates unwanted
frequencies that interfere with the signal
and degrade performance.
 Intermodulation Distortion
 Generation of unwanted sum and
difference frequencies produced when two
or more signals mix in a nonlinear device.
 The sum and difference frequencies are
called cross products.
 Unwanted cross products can interfere
with the information signal.
 Cross products are produced when
harmonics as well as fundamental
frequency mix in a nonlinear device.
 Cont..
 Cross products = mf1±nf2.
F1 and f2 are fundamental frequency.
F1>f2
M and n are positive integer.
 Correlated Noise-
Intermodulation Distortion

V1 V2 V1 V2

Vdifference Vsum

f1 f2 f1-f2 f1 f2 f1+f2
Input frequency spectrum Output frequency spectrum

Figure 6.4
 Example 6
For a nonlinear amplifier with 2 input
frequencies, 3kHz and 8kHz,
determine:
a) First 3 harmonics present in the
output for each input frequency.
b) Cross-product frequencies
produced for values of m and n of 1
and 2.
 Interference
 Form of external noise.
 Means to disturb or detract from.
 Electrical interference is when
information signals from one source
produce frequencies that fall outside their
allocated bandwidth and interfere with
information signals form another source.
 Most interference occur when harmonics
frequencies from one source fall into the
passband of a neighboring channel.
 Review Notes
 Gain
 Attenuation
• Both has the ratio output to the input.

output Vout
AV  
input Vin

Figure 6.5
 Gain
 Ratio output to the input.
 Output has greater amplitude than the
input

Figure 6.6

 Most amplifiers are power amplifier, the

same procedure can be used to calculate
power gain, Ap.
Ap = Pout/Pin
 Attenuation
Refers to loss introduced
by a circuit.
Output is less than input.
Vout
Attenuation A 
Vin

For cascade circuit, total

attenuation is, Figure 4.7 Voltage divider
AT=A1 x A2 x A3 ….. introduces attenuation

Voltage divider network

may introduce
attenuation.
 Figure 6.8 Total attenuation in cascaded network

Attenuation can be offset by

introducing gain.

Figure 6.9 Gain offsets the

attenuation
Figure 6.10 Total gain is the product of the individual stage gains and attenuation
Example 7
What is the gain of an amplifier that
produces an output of 750 mV for 30 V
input?

Example 8
The power output of an amplifier is 6 W. The
power gain is 80. What is the input power?

Example 9
Three cascade amplifier have power gains of
5,2, and 17. The input power is 40 mW. What
is the output power?
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
 Ratio of the signal power level to the
noise power level.
Ps
SNR 
Pn
 Express in logarithmic function:

Ps
SNR(dB)  10 log
Pn
 Example 10
1 For an amplifier with an output signal
power of 10W and an output noise power
of 0.01W, determine the SNR.
2 For an amplifier with an output signal
voltage of 4V, an output noise voltage of
0.005V and an input and output
resistance of 50Ω, determine the SNR.
 Noise Factor (F) and Noise
Figure (NF)
 Figures of merit used to indicate how
much the SNR deteriorates as a signal
passes through a circuit.
 Noise factor is simply a ratio of input
SNR to output SNR.

input SNR
F
output SNR
 Cont..
 NF is noise factor stated in dB.
 Used to indicate the quality of a receiver.
input SNR
NF (dB)  10 log
output SNR

NF (dB)  10 log F
 Ideal Noiseless Amplifier

Signal power in Si

Noise power in N i
Ideal Noiseless Amplifier
Ap=power gain

Signal power out Ap Si Si

 
Signal power in Ap Ni Ni
Figure 6.11
 Non ideal amplifier

Signal power in Si

Noise power in N i Nonideal amplifier
Ap=power gain
Nd=internally generated noise

Signal power out Ap S i Si

 
Signal power in Ap N i  N d N  N d
i Ap

Figure 6.12
 Example 11
 For a nonlinear amplifier and the following
parameter, determine:
a) Input SNR(dB)
b) Output SNR(dB)
c) Noise Factor and Noise Figure
Input signal power=2x10-10W
Input Noise power=2x10-18W
Power gain=1,000,000
Internal noise (Nd)=6x10-12W
 Noise Figure of Cascaded
Amplifier
Input Output

Si
Si Ni
Ap3
Ap1 Ap2
Ni NF1 NF2 NF3
So S
 i  NFT
No Ni

Figure 6.13
 Cont..
 Total noise factor is the accumulation of
the individual noise factor.
 Friiss’s formula is used to calculate the
total noise factor of several cascaded
amplifiers.
F2  1 F3  1 Fn  1
FT  F1   
A1 A1 A2 A1 A2  An
 Example 12
For 3 cascaded amplifier stages,
each with noise figure of 3 dB and
power gain of 10 dB, determine the
total noise figure.
 Equivalent Noise
Temperature (Te)
 Hypothetical value that cannot be directly
measured.
 To indicates the reduction in the SNR a signal
undergoes as it propagates through a receiver.
 The lower Te is the better quality of a receiver.

Te  T F  1
Te
F  1
T
 Example 13
Determine:
a) Noise Figure for an equivalent noise
temperature of 75K.
b) Equivalent noise temperature for a
noise figure of 6dB.
 Example 14

A voltage divider shown in Figure 6.9 has

values of R1 = 10k and R2 = 47k.
1. What is the attenuation?
2.What amplifier gain would you need to
offset the loss for an overall gain of 1?
 Example 15

An amplifier has gain of 45,000, which is too

much for the amplification. With an input
voltage of 20 V, what attenuation factor is
needed to keep the output voltage from
exceeding 100mV?. Let A1= amplifier gain =
45,000; A2 = attenuation factor; AT = total
gain.
 Example 16
A RF sine wave generator whose output impedance is
50  is connected to a 50  load using 50  coaxial
cable. The generator’s output amplitude level is set
to + 3 dBm. An rms voltmeter is used to measure the
effective voltage, and an oscilloscope is used to
display the sine wave. Compute the following:
1. The rms voltage measure by the rms voltmeter
2. The peak voltage, Vp of the sine wave that should be
displayed on the oscilloscope.
3. The peak-to-peak voltage, Vp-p of the sine wave that
should be displayed on the oscilloscope
 Example 17

The input signal to a telecommunications

receiver consists of 100W of signal power
and 1W of noise power. The receiver
contributes an additional 80W of noise, ND,
and has a power gain of 20 dB. Compute the
input SNR, the output SNR and the
receiver’s noise figure.