DETERMINING A SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO FOR AN ARBITRARY DATA SEQUENCE BY A TIME-DOMAIN ANALYSIS

We have developed an algorithm for determining the signal to noise(S/N) ratio for an arbitrary data sequence by a time domain correlation analysis. By measuring the correlation coefficient of lime domain readback voltages, r[V(t), V(t+nT)], we can determine the S/N for an arbitrary data sequence. We hare applied this method to obtain the S/N ratio for a magnetic recording thin film medium written by a 127 bit pseudo random sequence at different linear recording densities. The new algorithm may also provide us a simple way to integrate the S/ N measurement into a digital oscilloscope.