Low-Distortion Sinewave Generation Method Using Arbitrary Waveform Generator

This paper describes algorithms for generating a low-distortion single-tone signal, for testing ADCs, using an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). The AWG consists of DSP (or waveform memory) and DAC, and the nonlinearity of the DAC generates distortion components. We propose here to use DSP algorithms to precompensate for the distortion. The DSP part of the AWG can interleave multiple signals with the same frequency but different phases 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.