Binary Codes
Outline
• Codes
• Types of Codes
• Weighted
• Non-Weighted
Introduction
• In the coding, when numbers, letters or words are
represented by a specific group of symbols, it is said
that the number, letter or word is being encoded.
The group of symbols is called as a code.
•The digital data is represented, stored and
transmitted as group of binary bits. This group is
also called as binary code.
•The binary code is represented by the number as
well as alphanumeric letter.
Advantages of Binary Code
Following is the list of advantages that binary code
offers.
•Binary codes are suitable for the computer
applications.
•Binary codes are suitable for the digital
communications.
•Binary codes make the analysis and designing of
digital circuits if we use the binary codes.
•Since only 0 & 1 are being used, implementation
becomes easy.
Classification of Binary Code
The codes are broadly categorized into following
four categories:
• Weighted Codes
• Non-Weighted Codes
• Binary Coded Decimal Code
• Alphanumeric Codes
• Error Detecting Codes
• Error Correcting Codes
Classification of Binary Code
Weighted Codes
Weighted binary codes are those binary codes which
obey the positional weight principle. Each position of
the number represents a specific weight. Several
systems of the codes are used to express the decimal
digits 0 through 9. In these codes each decimal digit
is represented by a group of four bits.
Non-Weighted Codes
In this type of binary codes, the positional weights
are not assigned. The examples of non-weighted
codes are Excess-3 code and Gray code.
Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) Systems
The BCD system is employed by computer systems
to encode the decimal number into its equivalent
binary number.
This is generally accomplished by encoding each
digit of the decimal number into its equivalent
binary sequence.
The main advantage of BCD system is that it is a
fast and efficient system to convert the decimal
numbers into binary numbers as compared to the
pure binary system.
Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) Systems
The 4-bit BCD system is usually employed by the
computer systems to represent and process
numerical data only. In the 4-bit BCD system, each
digit of the decimal number is encoded to its
corresponding 4-bit binary sequence. The two most
popular 4-bit BCD systems are:
Weighted 4-bit BCD code
Excess-3 (XS-3) BCD code
Weighted 4-Bit BCD Code (8421)
The weighted 4-bit BCD code is more commonly known as
8421 weighted code.
It is called weighted code because it encodes the decimal
system into binary system by using the concept of positional
weighting into consideration.
In this code, each decimal digit is encoded into its 4-bit
binary number in which the bits from left to right have the
weights 8, 4, 2, and 1, respectively.
Weighted 4-Bit BCD Code
Decimal digits Weighted 4-bit BCD code
0 0000 Apart from
1 0001 8421, some
2 0010 other
3 0011 weighted
4 0100 BCD codes
5 0101 are 4221,
6 0110 2421 and
5211.
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001
Weighted 4-Bit BCD Code
Represent the decimal number 5327 in 8421 BCD code.
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of decimal digit 5 is 0101
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of decimal digit 3 is 0011
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of decimal digit 2 is
0010
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of decimal digit 7 is 0111
Therefore, the 8421 BCD representation of decimal number 5327 is
0101001100100111.
Advantages & Disadvantage of Binary Code
Advantages of BCD Codes
• It is very similar to decimal system.
• We need to remember binary equivalent of decimal
numbers 0 to 9 only.
Disadvantages of BCD Codes
•The addition and subtraction of BCD have different
rules.
• The BCD arithmetic is little more complicated.
• BCD needs more number of bits than binary to
represent the decimal number. So BCD is less
efficient than binary.
Excess-3 Code
• The Excess-3 (XS-3) BCD code does not use the principle of
positional weights into consideration while converting the
decimal numbers to 4-bit BCD system. Therefore, we can say
that this code is a non-weighted BCD code.
•The function of XS-3 code is to transform the decimal
numbers into their corresponding 4-bit BCD code.
•In this code, the decimal number is transformed to the 4-bit
BCD code by first adding 3 to all the digits of the number and
then converting the excess digits, so obtained, into their
corresponding 8421 BCD code. Therefore, we can say that the
XS-3 code is strongly related with 8421 BCD code in its
functioning.
Excess-3 Code
The excess-3 codes are obtained as follows
Example
Excess-3 Code
Convert the decimal number 85 to XS-3 BCD code.
Add 3 to each digit of the given decimal number as:
8+3=11
5+3=8
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of the decimal digit
11 is 1011.
The corresponding 4-bit 8421 BCD representation of the decimal digit
8 is 1000.
Therefore, the XS-3 BCD representation of the decimal number 85 is
1011 1000.
The Gray Code
19
Unweighted (not an arithmetic code).
Only a single bit change from one code number to the
next.
Good for error detection.
Decimal Binary Gray Code Decimal Binary Gray code
0 0000 0000 8 1000 1100
1 0001 0001 9 1001 1101
2 0010 0011 10 1010 1111
3 0011 0010 11 1011 1110
4 0100 0110 12 1100 1010
5 0101 0111 13 1101 1011
6 0110 0101 14 1110 1001
7 0111 0100 15 1111 1000
The Gray Code
20
0000 1100
0100
0001 0101
1101
0011
0001 0111
1111
0010
0000 0110
1110
0010
0110 0010
1010
0111
0011 0011
1011
0101
0001 0001
1001
0100
0000 0000
1000
Generating 4-bit standard Gray code.
Binary-to-Gray Code Conversion
21
MSB of binary is MSB of gray code.
Other bits of gray code are obtained by XOR operation
of two adjacent binary bits.
Example: Convert binary number 10110 to Gray code.
1 0 1 1 0 Binary 1 0 1 1 0 Binary 1 0 1 1 0 Binary
1 Gray 1 1 Gray 1 1 1 Gray
1 0 1 1 0 Binary 1 0 1 1 0 Binary
1 1 1 0 Gray 1 1 1 0 1 Gray
(10110)2 = (11101)Gray
Binary-to-Gray Code Conversion
22
Gray-to-Binary Conversion
23
MSB of gray code is MSB of binary.
Other bits of binary code are obtained by XOR
operation of generated binary bit with next bit of gray
code.
Example: Convert Gray code 11011 to binary.
1 1 0 1 1 Gray 1 1 0 1 1 Gray 1 1 0 1 1 Gray
1 Binary 1 0 Binary 1 0 0 Binary
1 1 0 1 1 Gray 1 1 0 1 1 Gray
1 0 0 1 Binary 1 0 0 1 0 Binary
(11011)Gray = (10010)2
Gray-to-Binary Conversion
24
Application of Gray code
25
Gray code is popularly used in the shaft
position encoders.
A shaft position encoder produces a code
word which represents the angular
position of the shaft.
Self-Complementing Codes
26
Examples: excess-3, 84-2-1, 2*421 codes.
The codes that represent the pair of complementary
digits are complementary of each other.
Excess-3 code
0: 0011
1: 0100
2: 0101
3: 0110
4: 0111 241: 0101 0111 0100
5: 1000 758: 1010 1000 1011
6: 1001
7: 1010
8: 1011
9: 1100
Alphanumeric Codes
27
Apart from numbers, computers also handle textual
data.
Character set frequently used includes:
alphabets: ‘A’ .. ‘Z’, and ‘a’ .. ‘z’
digits: ‘0’ .. ‘9’
special symbols: ‘$’, ‘.’, ‘,’, ‘@’, ‘*’, …
non-printable: SOH, NULL, BELL, …
Usually, these characters can be represented using 7 or
8 bits.
Alphanumeric Codes
28
ASCII: 7-bit, plus a parity bit for error detection
(odd/even parity).
Character ASCII Code
0 0110000
1 0110001
... ...
9 0111001
: 0111010
A 1000001
B 1000010
... ...
Z 1011010
[ 1011011
\ 1011100
Alphanumeric Codes
29
ASCII table:
MSBs
LSBs 000 001 010 011 100 101 110 111
0000 NUL DLE SP 0 @ P ` p
0001 SOH DC1 ! 1 A Q a q
0010 STX DC2 “ 2 B R b r
0011 ETX DC3 # 3 C S c s
0100 EOT DC4 $ 4 D T d t
0101 ENQ NAK % 5 E U e u
0110 ACK SYN & 6 F V f v
0111 BEL ETB ‘ 7 G W g w
1000 BS CAN ( 8 H X h x
1001 HT EM ) 9 I Y i y
1010 LF SUB * : J Z j z
1011 VT ESC + ; K [ k {
1100 FF FS , < L \ l |
1101 CR GS - = M ] m }
1110 O RS . > N ^ n ~
1111 SI US / ? O _ o DEL
Error Detection Codes
30
Errors can occur data transmission. They should be
detected, so that re-transmission can be requested.
With binary numbers, usually single-bit errors occur.
Example: 0010 erroneously transmitted as 0011, or 0000, or 0110,
or 1010.
Biquinary code uses 3 additional bits for error-
detection. For single-error detection, one additional
bit is needed.
Error Detection Codes
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Parity bit.
Even parity: additional bit supplied to make total number of ‘1’s
even.
Odd parity: additional bit supplied to make total number of ‘1’s
odd.
Character ASCII Code
Example: Odd parity. 0 0110000 1
1 0110001 0
... ...
Parity bits
9 0111001 1
: 0111010 1
A 1000001 1
B 1000010 1
... ...
Z 1011010 1
[ 1011011 0
\ 1011100 1
Error Detection Codes
32
Parity bit can detect odd number of errors but not even
number of errors.
Example: For odd parity numbers,
10011 10001 (detected)
10011 10101 (non detected)
Parity bits can also be
applied to a block of data: 0110 1
0001 0
1011 0
1111 1
1001 1
0101 0 Column-wise parity
Row-wise parity
Error Detection Codes
33
Sometimes, it is not enough to do error detection. We
may want to do error correction.
Error correction is expensive. In practice, we may use
only single-bit error correction.
Popular technique: Hamming Code.
