ADC linearity test signal generation algorithm

Abstract

This paper describes an algorithm for generating test signals to efficiently test the linearity of ADCs. Linearity is an important testing item for ADCs, and it takes a long time (hence is costly) to test low-sampling-rate, high-resolution ADCs. We here propose to generate a test signal consisting of multiple sine waves, to precisely test the linearity for specific important codes (such as around the center of the output codes), using an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and an analog filter. We have performed MATLAB simulation to validate our algorithm, and the results show that in some cases the testing time can be reduced to half that for conventional sine wave histogram testing.