Chapter 8, Sec. 8.

5 : Error Checking

Error detection Error correction

Parity approaches
Hamming Codes
Cyclic Redundancy Checking

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Error Detection and Correction

Bit Error Rate (statistical property)

BER = prob {on reading, a given bit will be in error}
Important where noise and signal integrity cannot be
so easily controlled:
I/O and communications
Magnetic Storage
DRAM
BER inside processor ~ 10-18
BER outside processor ~ 10-8 - 10-12

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Parity Checking: Error Detection

Add a Parity Bit to the word.

Even Parity: Make the parity bit 1 bit if needed to
make number 1 of bits even, else make it 0.
Odd Parity: Make the parity bit a 1 bit if needed to
make number of 1 bits odd, else make it 0.
Example: for word 10011010, to add odd parity bit:
100110101
What sort of errors can be detected ?

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Hamming Codes
Hamming codes are a class of codes that use combinations of
parity checks to both detect and correct errors.

They add a group of parity check bits to the data bits.

For ease of visualization, intersperse the parity bits within the

data bits;
Reserve bit locations (numbered 1 r) whose bit numbers are
powers of 2 for the parity bits.

A given parity bit is computed from data bits whose bit numbers
contain a 1 at the parity bit number.

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Multiple Parity Checks Making up a Hamming Code

Check 2

Check 1

Check 0

Bit position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
P1 P2 D3 P4 D5 D6 D7 Parity or data bit
20 21 22
001 010 011 100 101 110 111
P1 = D3 + D5 + D7
P2 = D3 + D6 + D7
P4 = D5 + D6 + D7

Thus each bit takes part in a different combination of parity checks.

When the word is checked, if only one bit is in error, all the parity bits that use it in
their computation will be incorrect.
Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall
 Exp: Venn Diagram showing Error Detection &
Correction using the Hamming Code

a. insert data
a. Sender: computes
& inserts even
parity bits
a. Receiver:
recomputes parity
bits, detects and
corrects error.

P1+P2 = 011
location
of the bit in
error

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Encode 1011 Using the Hamming Code &
Odd Parity

D3 D5 D6 D7
Insert the data bits: P1 P2 1 P4 0 1 1
P1 is computed from P1 D3 D5 D7 = 1, so P1 = 1.
P2 is computed from P2 D3 D6 D7 = 1, so P2 = 0.
P4 is computed from P4 D5 D6 D7 = 1, so P4 = 1.

The final encoded number is 1 0 1 1 0 1 1.

Note that the Hamming encoding scheme assumes that

at most one bit is in error.

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 SECDED (Single Error Correct, Double Error Detect)

Add another parity bit at position 0 (computed to over all bits;

data & parity).
Let ci, ,the check bit I, be 1 if check i fails, otherwise 0.
In the case of a 1-bit error:
The string ck-1, . . ., c1, c0 will be the binary index of the
erroneous bit (as before).
The overall parity will be wrong.
In the case of a 2-bit error:
One or more Hamming checks will fail,
The overall parity will be correct.

Assumption: The probability of 3 bits being in error is

negligible.

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 Compute the odd parity SECDED encoding of 01101011
The 8 data bits 01101011 would have 5 parity bits added to them to
make the 13-bit value:

P0 P1 P2 0 P4 1 1 0 P8 1 0 1 1
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P1 = D1 D2 D4 D5 D7
0 = 0 1 0 1 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P2= D1 D3 D4 D6 D7
P4= D2 D3 D4 D8
P8= D5 D6 D7 D8
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now P1 = 0, P2 = 1, P4 = 0, & P8 = 0, and we can compute that P0,
overall parity, = 1, giving the encoded value:
1010011001011

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Extract the Correct Data Value from the SECDED-
Encoded String 0110101101101, Assuming odd Parity

The string shows even parity, so there must be a

single bit in error.

Checks c2 and c4 fail, giving the binary index of the

erroneous bits as 0110 = 6, so D6 is in error.

It should be 0 instead of 1

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 SECDED (Single Error Correct, Double Error Detect)
SEC SECDED
DATA CHK % CHK %
BITS BITS iNCREASE BITS iNCREASE
8 4 50 5 62.5

16 5 31.25 6 37.5

32 6 18.75 7 21.88

64 7 10.94 8 12.5

128 8 6.25 9 7.03

256 9 3.52 10 3.91

Comp Sys Design & Arch 2nd Ed 2004 Prentice Hall

 Cyclic Redundancy Check, CRC

When data is transmitted serially over communications lines, the

pattern of errors usually results in several or many bits in error,
due to the nature of line noise (e.g., "crackling" noise on
telephone lines) is this kind of noise.

Parity checks are not as useful in these cases.

Instead CRC checks are used.

The CRC can be generated serially.

It usually consists of XOR gates.

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 CRC Generator Based on the Polynomial
x16 + x12 + x5 + 1.

Data b0 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8 b9 b10 b11 b12 b13 b14 b15

The number & position of XOR gates is determined by the

polynomial.
CRC does not support error correction but the CRC bits
generated can be used to detect multi-bit errors.
The CRC results in extra CRC bits, which are appended to the
data word & sent along.
The receiving entity can check for errors by recomputing the
CRC and comparing it with the one that was transmitted.

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 Serial Data Transmission with Appended
CRC Code

Word 1
Word 2
CRC Generator
Word 3
Word 4
.
.
CRC Word N . . . Word 3 Word 2 Word 1
. Sending
Word N a Packet time
Transmission
Line
Output
Buffer

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 Receiving Serial Data with Appended CRC
Input
Buffer
Received Word 1
Packet Word 2
Correct: Word 3
CRC Generator Send ACK Word 4
YES .
Received Received .
=
CRC NO Packet .
Incorrect: Word N
Send NACK

Transmission Word N . . . Word 3 Word 2 Word 1

Line Input

time

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