Differential Manchester encoding (DM) is a
line code in digital frequency modulation in which
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...
and
clock signals are combined to form a single two-level self-
synchronizing
Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are said to be synchronou ...
data stream. In various specific applications, this method is also called by various other names, including biphase mark code (CC), F2F (frequency/double frequency), Aiken biphase, and conditioned diphase.
[US DoD: ''Design handbook for fiber optic communications systems, Military handbook.'' Dept. of Defense, 1985, p. 65.]
Definition
Differential Manchester encoding is a
differential encoding technology, using the presence or absence of transitions to indicate
logical value. An improvement to
Manchester coding which is a special case of
binary phase-shift keying, it is not necessary to know the initial polarity of the transmitted message signal, because the information is not represented by the absolute voltage levels but by their transitions.
Differential Manchester encoding has the following advantages over some other line codes:
* A transition is guaranteed at least once every bit, for robust
clock recovery.
* In a noisy environment, detecting transitions is less error-prone than comparing signal levels against a threshold.
* Unlike with Manchester encoding, only the presence of a transition is important, not the polarity.
Differential coding In digital communications, differential coding is a technique used to provide ''unambiguous'' signal reception when using some types of modulation. It makes data to be transmitted to depend not only on the current signal state (or symbol), but also ...
schemes will work exactly the same if the signal is inverted (e.g. wires swapped). Other line codes with this property include
NRZI,
bipolar encoding,
coded mark inversion, and
MLT-3 encoding.
* If the high and low signal levels have the same magnitude with opposite polarity, the average voltage around each unconditional transition is zero. Zero
DC bias reduces the necessary transmitting power, minimizes the amount of electromagnetic noise produced by the transmission line, and eases the use of isolating transformers.

These positive features are achieved at the expense of doubling the clock frequency—there are two clock ticks per bit period (marked with full and dotted lines in the figure). At every second clock tick, marked with a dotted line, there is a potential level transition conditional on the data. At the other ticks, the line state changes unconditionally to ease clock recovery. One version of the code makes a transition for 0 and no transition for 1; the other makes a transition for 1 and no transition for 0.
Differential Manchester encoding is specified in the
IEEE 802.5 standard for Token Ring local area networks, and is used for many other applications, including magnetic and optical storage. As Biphase Mark Code (BMC), it is used in
AES3,
S/PDIF,
SMPTE time code,
USB PD
The initial versions of the USB standard specified connectors that were easy to use and that would have acceptable life spans; revisions of the standard added smaller connectors useful for compact portable devices. Higher-speed development of t ...
,
xDSL and
DALI
Dali or Dalí may refer to:
Chinese history
* Kingdom of Dali (937–1253 AD), centered in modern Yunnan
* Kingdom of Nanzhao or Dali, Kingdom of Dali's predecessor state
* Dali, Emperor Daizong of Tang's third and last regnal period (766–779)
...
. Many
magnetic stripe cards also use BMC encoding, often called F2F (frequency/double frequency) or Aiken Biphase, according to the
ISO/IEC 7811 standard. Differential Manchester encoding is also the original modulation method used for single-density
floppy disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
s, followed by double-density
modified frequency modulation (MFM), or Differential Manchester encoding.
See also
*
Manchester code
In telecommunication and data storage, Manchester code (also known as phase encoding, or PE) is a line code in which the encoding of each data bit is either low then high, or high then low, for equal time. It is a self-clocking signal with no DC ...
*
McASP McASP is an acronym for Multichannel Audio Serial Port, a communication peripheral found in Texas Instruments family of digital signal processors ( DSPs) and Microcontroller Units (MCUs).
The McASP functions as a general-purpose audio serial port o ...
*
Run-length limited: FM
References
Further reading
* Watkinson, John (1994) ''The Art of Digital Audio'', 2nd edition. Oxford:
Focal Press
Focal Press is a publisher of creative and applied media books and it is an imprint of Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Company history
The firm was founded in London in 1938 by Andor Kraszna-Krausz, a Hungarian photographer who migrated to England ...
.
*
Introduction to magnetic stripe technology* (https://www.sqa.org.uk/e-learning/NetTechDC01ECD/page_09.htm) Introduction to rudimentary biphase encoding
{{Bit-encoding
Line codes