The effect of sampling offset on the Pe performance of partial response systems

The sensitivity of partial response systems to timing error is investigated. The Gram-Charlier series expansion method is used to derive a general expression of the probability of error, which includes the effects of sampling offset and additive Gaussian noise. The probability of error performance is analyzed for five types of partial response systems as a function of timing error, and the results are compared with the Chernoff bound. The Chernoff bound for estimating the probability of error is shown to yield predictions that are too pessimistic by about a factor of ten for a wide range of parameters examined.