Increasing the performance of arbitrary waveform generators using periodic sigma-delta modulated streams

Author

Dufort, Benoit ; Roberts, Gordon W.

Author_Institution

Microelectron. & Comput. Syst. Lab., McGill Univ., Montreal, Que., Canada

Volume

49

Issue

1

fYear

2000

fDate

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

188

Lastpage

199

Abstract

This paper describes a new method to increase the performance of existing arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs). By encoding the digital words using sigma-delta (ΣΔ) techniques, it is possible to decrease the noise floor in a narrow band while keeping the same memory requirements. Calibration techniques to deal with the nonidealities of the AWG are also presented and verified experimentally. Improvements in spurious free dynamic ranges (SFDRs) of over 40 dB will be demonstrated with commercial test equipment

Keywords

automatic test equipment; calibration; quantisation (signal); sigma-delta modulation; timing jitter; transfer functions; waveform generators; ATE; arbitrary waveform generators; calibration techniques; clock jitter; digital words; encoding; increased performance; narrow band; noise floor; nonidealities; periodic sigma-delta modulated streams; quantization; spurious free dynamic range; transfer function; Automatic testing; Calibration; Circuit testing; Costs; Delta-sigma modulation; Filters; Narrowband; Quantization; Signal generators; Test equipment;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.836332

Filename

836332