Low-Distortion Single-Tone and Two-Tone Sinewave Generation Algorithms Using an Arbitrary Waveform Generator

This paper describes algorithms for generating low distortion single-tone and two-tone sine waves, for testing ADCs,using an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). The AWG consists of DSP and DAC, and the nonlinearity of the DAC generates distortion components. We propose here to use DSPalgorithms to precompensate for the distortion. The DSP part of the AWG can interleave two or four signals with the same frequency but different phase at the input to the DAC, in order to precompensate for distortion caused by DAC nonlinearity. Theoretical analysis, simulation, and experimental results all demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.