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

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.