Signal generator using FPGA and DAC

S

Sheetal

Hello..I'm a university student familiar with the only the basics of
VHDL and FPGA implementation..For my project, I'm trying a make a sine
wave, ramp, triangular and square wave generator which outputs
required wave of required amplitude and required frequency

The FPGA is connected with DAC thru I2C bus..

The development board (nanoboard) has on- board freq of 20 mhz...now the
dac being connected to the I2c bus can work upto max 400 Mhz..so a
suitable clock

divisor has to be implemented ..thus a low frequency can be used as
SCL input to DAC..

a)Now, for the sine and square wave, I'm assuming that we can use the
same look-up table(values ranging from 0 to 256)for the output values
of DAC.for obtaining different frequencies, only the SCL needs to be
changed . i.e.if SCl rate is high, the DAC would output from 0 to 256,
then to 0 at a faster rate, if SCL is low, it would output the same
values, but with some delay. THus, variable frequency can be obtained
by changing SCL rate..am I correct in assuming so?

b)If this is correct, can anyone please tell me the relationship
between SCL and output wave frequency..if such a formula/well defined
relationship does exist

c) Also, can anyone tell me about a good link for a simple tutorial on
implementing look-up table?I did find some on the web, but they all
seemed to be complicated..either because they ARE..or because my mind
has gone all-blank right now, with the submission date coming so
near..

Any help at this time would be hugely appreciated

Kind Regards,
Sheetal
 
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
31
Reaction score
0
Hi !

Well, according to me using "SCL" for varying frequency of the DAC output is completly a bad idea. SCL is a signal as a clock for I2C interface. What you can do is keep the SCL at the max possible frequency supported by the I2C interface. And control the data (from look-up table) rate going to the input of DAC to achieve different frequencies. So your output frequency becomes independent of SCL frequency.

One more comment. I do not find any reason why you should use a look up table for generating square wave. You can write a small process to generate square wave of desired amplitude. Ofcourse if your application requires the use of look up table then go for it.

For implementing look up table in FPGA, I am sure you will definetly find something in Xilinx's application notes.

Good luck for your project !

:driver:
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
473,734
Messages
2,569,441
Members
44,832
Latest member
GlennSmall

Latest Threads

Top