Definition
The noise factor F of a system is defined as:
where SNRin and SNRout are the input and output signal-to-noise ratios, respectively. The SNR quantities are power ratios. The noise figure NF is defined as:
where SNRin, dB and SNRout, dB are in decibels (dB). The noise figure is the noise factor, given in dB:
These formulae are only valid when the input termination is at standard noise temperature T0, although in practice small differences in temperature do not significantly affect the values.
The noise factor of a device is related to its noise temperature Te:
Attenuators have a noise factor F equal to their attenuation ratio L when their physical temperature equals T0. More generally, for an attenuator at a physical temperature T, the noise temperature is, giving a noise factor of:
If several devices are cascaded, the total noise factor can be found with Friis' Formula:
where Fn is the noise factor for the n-th device and Gn is the power gain (linear, not in dB) of the n-th device. In a well designed receive chain, only the noise factor of the first amplifier should be significant.
Read more about this topic: Noise Figure
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction.... The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyperreal.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are:MSpirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!—But the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the occasion to profane them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)