Coded mark inversionIn telecommunication, coded mark inversion (CMI) is a non-return-to-zero (NRZ) line code. It encodes zero bits as a half bit time of zero followed by a half bit time of one, and while one bits are encoded as a full bit time of a constant level. The level used for one bits alternates each time one is coded. This is vaguely reminiscent of, but quite different from, Miller encoding, which also uses half-bit and full-bit pulses, but additionally uses the half-one/half-zero combination and arranges them so that the signal always spends at least a full bit time at a particular level before transitioning again.
Bit error rateIn digital transmission, the number of bit errors is the numbers of received bits of a data stream over a communication channel that have been altered due to noise, interference, distortion or bit synchronization errors. The bit error rate (BER) is the number of bit errors per unit time. The bit error ratio (also BER) is the number of bit errors divided by the total number of transferred bits during a studied time interval. Bit error ratio is a unitless performance measure, often expressed as a percentage.
Coding theoryCoding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied by various scientific disciplines—such as information theory, electrical engineering, mathematics, linguistics, and computer science—for the purpose of designing efficient and reliable data transmission methods.