2/27/2023

Lesson 2 - NOISE
Kinds of Noise
Noise Computation

Noise
• Defined, in electrical terms, as any unwanted introduction of energy
tending to interfere with the proper reception and reproduction of
transmitted signals.
• Any Undesired voltage or current that ultimately ends up appearing in
the receiver output
• Result of Noise
• Hiss/static
• Snow/confetti
• Bit error
• Signal loss

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Kinds of Noise
 Correlated Noise- mutually related to the signal and cannot be present in a circuit
unless there is an input signal and is produced by non-linear amplification. No signal,
no noise
• Harmonic distortion – unwanted harmonics of signal.

Kinds of Noise
• Intermodulation Distortion – the generation of unwanted sum and
difference frequencies (cross products) when two or more signals are
amplified in a non-linear device.

Input Frequency Output Frequency

Spectrum Spectrum

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Kinds of Noise

 Uncorrelated Noise – present regardless of whether there is a

signal present or not

• External Noise – generated outside the device or outside the

receiver circuit. noise whose sources are external to the receiver.
• Internal Noise – generated within the device or within the
receiver. Noise created within the receiver itself.

Types of External Noise

External noise may be classified into the following three

types:
• Atmospheric noises
• Extraterrestrial noises
• Man-made noises or industrial noises.

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Atmospheric Noise

• Naturally occurring electrical disturbances that

originate within the Earth’s atmosphere
• Atmospheric noise or static is caused by lighting
discharges in thunderstorms and other natural electrical
disturbances occurring in the atmosphere
• The field strength of atmospheric noise varies
approximately inversely with the frequency

Extraterrestrial Noise

• Consists of electrical signals that originate from outside the Earth’s

atmosphere
• There are numerous types of extraterrestrial noise or space noises
depending on their sources. However, these may be put into
following two subgroups.
• Solar noise – directly from the sun’s heat
• Cosmic noise – from the stars

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Man-made Noise

• Produced by manufactured equipment such as automotive

ignition systems, electric motors and generators
• meant the electrical noise produced by such sources as
automobiles and aircraft ignition, electrical motors and switch
gears, leakage from high voltage lines, fluorescent lights, and
numerous other heavy electrical machines
• noise is most intensive in industrial and densely populated
areas

Type of Internal Noise

• Internal noise in communication, i.e. noises which get,

generated within the receiver or communication system.
• Internal noise may be put into the following four categories.
• Thermal noise or white noise or Johnson noise
• Shot noise.
• Transit time noise
• Miscellaneous internal noise.

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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.
• The transit time shows up as a kind of random noise within the
device, and this is directly proportional to the frequency of
operation.

Miscellaneous Internal Noise

• Flicker noise or modulation noise is the one appearing in

transistors operating at low audio frequencies.
• Flicker noise is proportional to the emitter current and junction
temperature. However, this noise is inversely proportional to
the frequency. Hence it may be neglected at frequencies above
about 500 Hz and it, Therefore, possess no serious problem

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Thermal Noise

• Associated with the rapid and random movement of

electrons within a conductor due to thermal agitation
• noise generated in any resistance due to random
motion of electrons is called thermal noise or white or
Johnson noise.

Noise Power
Expressed mathematically as

PN – noise power (Watts)

k – Boltzmann’s constant (1.38 X 10-23 J/K)
T – equivalent noise temperature of the receiver
(kelvin)(room temperature= 290 K)
B – noise bandwidth (Hertz)

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Sample Problems
Calculate the noise power at the input to a receiver
that has a radio carrier frequency of 4GHz and a
bandwidth of 30MHz.

Noise Voltage
Consider the noise source equivalent circuit

RN
RL VL
VN

Noise
Source
ECEA111 -Communications 1-Principles of Communications

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For maximum power transfer of the

noise source

Since,

gives

Solve for the noise

voltage

ECEA111 -Communications 1-Principles of Communications

RMS Noise Voltage Due to Several Sources

 Series combination

VNT  V   V 
N1
2
N2
2
 
 ...  V N n
2

 Parallel combination

1 1 1 1
   ... 
VNT V  V 
N1
2
N2
2
V 
Nn
2

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Noise Density
• Is the noise power normalized to 1-Hz bandwidth, or the
noise power present in a 1-Hz bandwidth

• Expressed as log with 1W/Hz as the reference

N O ( dBW / Hz )  10 log PN  10 log B

N O ( dBW / Hz )  10 log K  10 log T

Sample Problem
• For an equivalent noise bandwidth of 20MHz and a
total noise power of 0.0276pW, determine the noise
density and equivalent noise temperature.

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Sample Problem

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

• A relative measure of the desired signal power to the

noise power

• In decibel form

 S  P V
   10 log S  20 log S
 N  dB PN VN

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Noise Factor and Noise Figure

• Are figures of merit used to indicate how much signal-to-
noise ratio deteriorates as a signal passes through a
circuit or series of circuits.
• Noise factor is simply the ratio of input signal-to-noise
ratio to output signal-to-noise ratio
• Noise figure is simply the noise factor stated in dB

Reactance Noise Effects

• The significant effect of reactive circuits on noise
is their limitation on frequency response
• The equivalent bandwidth to be used in noise
calculations with reactive circuits

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Equivalent Noise Temperature

Where:
Teq = Equivalent Noise Temperature (K)
To = reference absolute temperature , 290oK
F = noise Factor

Noise due to Amplifiers in Cascade

Friss Formula
• Over-all noise factor of n-stages

• Over-all noise temperature of n-stages

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Shot Noise

• Caused by the random arrival of carriers

(holes and electrons)vat the output
element of an electronic device.
• Shot noise is also produced by the
random movement of electrons or holes
across a PN junction

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