Low-Distortion One-Tone and Two-Tone Signal Generation Using AWG Over Full Nyquist Region

Abstract

This paper describes algorithms, simulation and experiment verifications of a novel harmonic distortion suppression technique for an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). It can automatically suppress the harmonics and the image components over a full Nyquist region of the AWG by preprocessing the sinusoidal waveform data using "phase switching method". We show this technique can apply to cancel the harmonics from mid-frequency regions. Also we show two-tone signal generation with IMD suppression. With these methods, distortion components close to the signal are suppressed simply by changing DSP program or waveform memory contents —AWG nonlinearity identification is not required—and spurious components, generated far from the signal band, are relatively easy to remove using an analog filter.