DDS Technology Based Programmable Arbitrary Waveform Generator

Direct Digital frequency Synthesis was advanced rapidly in early 1970s and has been developing owing to its entirely digital structure. The appearance of Programmable Logic Device has changed the design method of digital electronical system and provided a new design model. With the two technologies and the flexible control ability of MCU, a new digital signal source, Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG), has been developed. This new signal source can generate arbitrary waveform and also can sample and regenerate waveform. This paper will describe the process and characteristics of it.The EPF10K10 of Corporation Altera is choosed to do the main digital processing work, which is based on the large scale and high speed of it. The 80C196KC MCU of Corporation Intel is choosed as a control chip. In this design, how to design the PLD chip and the interface between the PLD and the control chip is the problem. With the method of software and hardware programming, the design used the software MAX+plus II and language verilog-HDL solve it successfully.In this paper, the principle of DDS and basis of EDA technology is introduced firstly. Secondly the chips which are choosed in the design are introduced. They are the base of the design. Then the problems met in the design are analysed and the whole function is partitioned into three parts: peripheral hardware, PLD device and software. The three parts are described in detail independently. Finally the function, performance, realization, and experiment result are introduced in detail through an experiment. The disadvantage and things need to advance are also listed.Through a experiment, It is testified that the design meets the requirement planed and the way to use software and hardware programming method and DDS technology to realize AWG is available.