A general purpose differential digital modulator implementation incorporating a direct digital synthesis method

A highly versatile digital modulator that uses a direct digital synthesis method to perform signal modulation is described. In contrast to the customary methods of implementing I-Q modulation schemes utilizing in-phase and quadrature branches, this design approach is based on directly accessing many of the digitally stored carrier modulating symbols according to the information bearing input signals. Apart from the digital-to-analog converter, all the previous stages are digital. To demonstrate the concept, a differential 16-QAM modulator was implemented. The technique lends itself to VLSI implementation. It can be considered as a digital implementation of a digital modulator.<>