Design of arbitrary waveform generator based on SDRAM

To solve the problems of the difficulty to generate long period waveform, of the complicated operation and inconvenient control, a scheme that is based on the combination of large capacity storage and virtual instruments technique of arbitrary waveform generator (AWG), is proposed. The storage capacity has been raised up to 8M by utilizing synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) as a waveform data memory; in the meantime, a friendly and easy control instrument interface is finished with the help of LabVIEW. Because of hard control of SDRAM, the FPGA is especially employed to solve the problem of SDRAM control and timing-logical control of the whole system; it not only improves data access speed but also enhances the whole system's integration capability, as well as anti-interference ability. The design of SDRAM controller and instrument interface is given in detail. Testing data of experimental prototype can meet the design targets. It has great practical value.