Static Characterization of Arbitrary Waveform Generator based on Modified Multi- sine Fitting and Zero Crossing Detection Algorithms

The static characterization of the output section of the Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) requires that its output signal must be digitalized by Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) with higher linearity and resolution than the device under test. In the literature, the problem of high resolution acquisition is translated to the simpler problem of low resolution and high sampling frequency acquisition of the resulting signal, difference between the AWG output signal and the sinusoidal reference signal, available at the output of differential amplifier. The research is devoted to improving the evaluation accuracy of the AWG output by taking into consideration the degradation causes arising from (i) the delay introduced by the differential amplifier, and (ii) the jitter and other noise sources affecting the detection of the Zero Crossing Time Sequence (ZCTS) in the resulting signal. In the paper a method is proposed based on the processing of the resulting signal, only, and the improved ZCTS detection. Numerical tests validate the proposed method.