Eb/No and BER Calculators: Understanding Bit Error Rate

This page provides information on Eb/No and BER (Bit Error Rate), including an Eb/No calculator and BER calculator. It explains the basics of these concepts.

As we know, C/N stands for Carrier-to-Noise ratio, and Eb/No stands for bit energy to noise power density ratio.

N (Noise) here is equal to KTB, where:

• K is Boltzmann’s constant (1.38 x 10^-23)
• T is the noise temperature
• B is the bandwidth.

Eb/No Calculator

This calculator takes Eb/No, Bit rate, and Bandwidth as inputs and calculates C/N.

Example:

INPUTS: Eb/No = 11.1 dB ; Bit rate = 0.256 Mbps BW = 0.128 Mbps (128 Kbps)

OUTPUT: C/N = 14.1 dB

C/N to Eb/No Calculator

This calculator takes C/N, Bit rate and Bandwidth and calculates Eb/No.

Example:

INPUTS: C/N = 14.1 dB ; Bit rate = 0.256 Mbps BW = 0.128 Mbps (128 Kbps) OUTPUT: Eb/N0 = 11.1 dB

BER (Bit Error Rate) Calculator

Example:

INPUTS: Number of erroneous bits = 20; Total bits = 1e8 OUTPUT: BER = 2e-7

Understanding Eb/No, C/N, and BER

As explained above, Eb/No, C/N, and BER (Bit Error Rate) parameters are interchangeably used for measuring the performance of a wireless and wired system.

• Higher the Eb/No ratio and C/N ratio, the better the system performs under noisy conditions.
• BER stands for Bit Error Rate. It’s the ratio of the number of bits received in error to the total number of bits transmitted.
• The lower the BER, the better the system’s performance.

Usually, system designers and engineers use an Eb/No vs. BER curve to find the BER from the Eb/No value for different modulation coding schemes.