Patent Application
20100018383
This invention relates in general to digital complex tone generation and apparatus and methods configured to generate a digital complex tone.
Tone generators and generation of tones are known. Such apparatus and methods are used in music synthesizers and products such as some keyboard instruments and the like. Tone generators, i.e., sine wave generators, are also used for testing and calibration of more complex systems, e.g., integrated circuit transceivers and systems, found in cell phones and the like. By including a tone generator that is integral to or integrated with these systems, the systems can be arranged to essentially self test and calibrate with the application of power and little if anything else coupled to the system. A tone generator that is integral with a system needs to be highly efficient in terms of silicon usage and even minor improvements in silicon area can be significant, since the tone generator is, for the most part, overhead and contributes little if anything to the functionality of the actual system.
Furthermore it is important that the properties of the generated tone be adjustable over wide ranges of characteristics. One known way to generate a tone is to store values corresponding to the tone in read only memory. If one stores values at a maximum sampling rate and corresponding to a lowest desired frequency one will be able to read out those values and thus generate a digital tone at the lowest desired frequency or at frequencies that are integer multiples of that lowest frequency, e.g., every other value will be a tone at twice the lowest frequency. This technique takes significant silicon area and usually does not provide sufficient flexibility in tone characteristics.
The accompanying figures where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views and which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages all in accordance with the present invention.
In overview, the present disclosure concerns digital complex tone generation, e.g., one or more methods and apparatus for so doing, and more specifically techniques and apparatus for digital complex tone generation that are arranged and constructed for very accurate tone generation which is very efficient in silicon area and thus suitable for implementation as an integral system or generator for use in self calibration and testing of more complex systems, e.g., receivers and transmitters for cellular telephones and the like. Self testing and calibration lower costs of manufacturing products, which include the systems or integrated circuits that are self calibrating, etc.
The instant disclosure is provided to further explain in an enabling fashion the best modes, at the time of the application, of making and using various embodiments in accordance with the present invention. The disclosure is further offered to enhance an understanding and appreciation for the inventive principles and advantages thereof, rather than to limit in any manner the invention. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.
It is further understood that the use of relational terms, if any, such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like are used solely to distinguish one from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions.
Much of the inventive functionality and many of the inventive principles are best implemented with or in integrated circuits (ICs) including possibly application specific ICs or ICs with integrated processing controlled by embedded software or firmware or various combinations thereof. It is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation. Therefore, in the interest of brevity and minimization of any risk of obscuring the principles and concepts according to the present invention, further discussion of such firmware, software, and ICs, if any, will be limited to the essentials with respect to the principles and concepts of the various embodiments.
Referring to
The digital complex tone generator 100 is comprised of a first tone generator 103 and a second tone generator 105, which are configured to generate and provide a, respective, first and a second digital tone at outputs 107, 109. As will be further described below each of the first and the second tone generator can be comprised of a, respective, first and second infinite impulse response (IIR) filter, where each IIR filter is initialized and configured as an oscillator (two delay stages with output coupled back to input, etc.). Each of the first and second tone generators, i.e., each of the IIR filters, can be initialized with values from an initialization buffer 111 as illustrated. The initialization values can be based on programmable characteristics including one or more of a desired frequency, phase, and amplitude, associated with the, respective, first and second digital tone. In a typical embodiment, each tone generator 103, 105 will produce a digital tone with the same desired frequency and same desired amplitude; however the first and the second digital tones will have a different respective desired phase or a relative phase between the first and second digital tone. For example, one of the tone generators may be initialized to produce a digital tone with zero phase, while the other produces a digital tone with a non-zero phase, e.g., 90 degree phase for orthogonal digital tones. The outputs of the first and second tone generators, i.e., the first and second digital tones are coupled to a generator adder 113. The generator adder 113 can be configured for combining the first digital tone and the second digital tone to provide a digital complex tone with programmable characteristics.
As will be further discussed herein below, each of the IIR filters for the respective first and second tone generators is comprised of first and second delay stages, a multiplier, an inverter or twos complement negative and an adder. The first delay stage can be initialized with a value proportional to the sine of the, respective, first and second desired phase, sin(t) which can be determined from the relative phase. The second delay stage can be initialized with a value proportional to sine of the, respective, negative desired frequency added to the, respective, first and second desired phase, sin(−ωd+t), where ωd=2πfd/fSAMP. The multiplier can be used for weighting an output of the first delay stage by a value proportional to 2 times cosine of the, respective, desired frequency, 2 cos(ωd)=2 cos(2πfd/fSAMP). The adder is configured to provide the, respective, first or second digital tone by combining an output of the multiplier and an output of the inverter, where the inverter is coupled to an output of the second delay stage.
The digital complex tone generator 100 can be arranged and configured to iteratively provide a sequence of N bit twos complement words corresponding to the digital complex tone at a word or sample rate of fSAMP and desired frequency of fd up to fSAMP divided by two (2) along with a desired or selectable or programmable phase and amplitude. As will be more fully discussed below, the first and second IIR filters or constituent delay stages may be periodically reinitialized to there respective initial states. This can overcome drift due to cumulative errors resulting from quantization errors, if needed.
An overview of a digital complex tone generator 100 has been illustrated by
Referring to
The first tone generator 103 can further comprise a first delay stage 203 that is initialized at 205 with a value (from the initialization buffer 111) that is based on the first phase. In one or more embodiments, the first delay stage can be initialized with a value proportional to the sine of the first phase, e.g., where the proportionality value is the desired or first amplitude, i.e. A sin(t). In varying embodiments, the first tone generator can further comprises a second delay stage 207 with an input coupled to an output at 209 of the first delay stage 203, where the second delay stage can be initialized at 211 with a value (from initialization buffer 111), which value is based on the first frequency and the first phase. In one or more embodiments, the second delay stage that can be initialized with a value proportional to a sine of the negative first frequency added to the first phase, e.g., A sin (−2πfd/fSAMP+t), where A is the first or first selected amplitude.
The first tone generator 103 further comprises a multiplier 213 that is coupled to the output of the first delay stage at 209 and configured to weight the output of the first delay stage by a value or multiplier constant, which is available from the initialization buffer at 215, where the value is based on the first frequency. In some embodiments, the multiplier can be configured to weight the output of the first delay stage by a value proportional to cosine of the first frequency, e.g., 2 cos(2πfd/fSAMP).
The first tone generator 103 in one or more embodiments further comprises a first adder 217 that is arranged and configured to add an output from the multiplier at 219 and an inverse, provided by inverter 221 at 223 of an output at 225 of the second delay stage 207 and provide the first digital tone at 227. The first digital tone at 227 is coupled to an input of the first delay stage and to an input of the generator adder at 107. As shown, the second tone generator 105 provides the second tone at 109 to the generator adder 113 and the sum of these tones results in the digital complex tone at 115.
The first and second delay stages 203, 207 and the corresponding delay stages in the second tone generator can be reset via reset input 229, which is a synchronous reset input. The digital complex tone generator can include a reset counter 231 that is coupled to the reset input 229 of the first and the second delay stage and configured to provide a reset signal to re-initialize the first delay stage and the second delay stage periodically. The reset counter 231 counts clock edges from a common clock at input 233 operating at a clock frequency or sample rate. In some embodiments, where the tone frequency or first frequency and the clock frequency or sample rate fSAMP have an M/N smallest positive integer ratio, the reset counter can provide the reset signal whenever the number of clock edges reaches the least-common-multiple of M, N, i.e., a product of M times N divided by the greatest common divisor of M, N. This can be further appreciated from the following comments. The reset counter can be used to reset the second tone generator as well, particularly in embodiments arranged to generate the same tone frequency. In some embodiments the reset counter needs to be able to count at the clock or sample rate and should have a maximum count on the order of 100 times L=LCM(M,N) for the highest frequency desired tone.
In digital circuits there are quantization errors since a particular value is only accurate to the word length that is being used. In recursive circuits, such as IIR filters or other feedback circuits these quantization errors can accumulate over time. In the digital complex tone generator if the digital complex tone is generated for too much time these accumulated quantization errors or noise can result spur generation or quantization noise growth. If the values for tone frequency are limited to frequencies fd such that fd/fSAMP=M/N, where M and N are positive integers and 2M<N, a reset rate can be determined, which will eliminate any drift or noise growth issues.
Let L=least-common-multiple(M, N)=M*N/greatest-common-divisor (M,N) and consider x[n]=sin(2*π*fd*n/FSAMP) and x[n+L]=sin(2*π*fd*(n+L)/FSAMP). Then, x[n+L]=sin(2*π*M*(n+L)/N)=sin(2*π*M*n/N+2*π*L*n/N)=sin(2*π*M*n/N+2*π*K*n) where K=some integer, and thus x[n+L]=x[n] exactly. Therefore if a synchronous reset is performed at the rate of L, any drift issues are resolved. As an example of this approach in use, suppose fSAMP=6.5 MHz and a possible fd=83 KHz. The ratio of these can be approximated as 16/1253, which would imply an actual generated tone frequency of 83,000.798 or a difference of less than 0.799 Hz from the possible fd. L would equal 20048 samples, i.e., reset every 20048 samples=16(1253)/GCD (16, 1253) or about one reset for every 3 milli seconds. If the bit width of signals and multipliers is large enough to avoid significant drift in these time spans, the tone generator can operate for any time span. To be more accurate in tone frequency, we could use M=83 and N=6500 and get the exact fd=83 KHz; however L=539,500 samples or about once every 83 milli seconds.
The tone generator discussed above functions based on the following observations. It is known that a two stage IIR filter provides an output that is a combination of a present input and weighted combinations of previous outputs. This can be expressed as follows:
y[n]=−a1*y[n−1]−a2*y[n−2]+b0*x[n], where
y[n]=output sequence,
n=discrete-time,
x[n]=input sequence,
a1, a2, b0 are constants
Suppose we want h[n]=sin((n+1)*ω0+t), i.e. a sine wave with selectable frequency, ω0=2πf0, and phase, t. From trigonometry we can write this as:
Setting n=0,−1,−2 we get, respectively, h[0]=sin(ω0+t), h[−1]=sin(t), h[−2]=sin(−ω0+t). Note that an amplitude, A, merely multiplies the two terms, h[n−1], h[n−2], i.e., by scaling each memory element, h[n−1], h[n−2], by A, a selectable amplitude can be provided. Thus if we set the initial conditions as noted above, we can do a sine wave generator with controllable, programmable or selectable, frequency, phase, and amplitude. By providing two tone generators and selecting different phases a digital complex tone generator can be realized.
Referring to
With the initialization values, a method of generating a digital complex tone can comprise initializing a first tone generator based on a selected first frequency, first phase, and first amplitude and initializing a second tone generator based on a selected second frequency, second phase, and second amplitude 307. As noted above in one or more embodiments the first and second frequency and amplitudes can be equal. In more detail, the initializing a first tone generator further comprises initializing a first delay stage in an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter with a value proportional to sine of the selected first phase, initializing a second delay stage in the IIR filter with a value proportional to sine of the sum of a negative of the selected first frequency and the selected first phase, sin(−2π fd/fSAMP+t), and initializing a multiplier with a first constant value proportional to or equal to two times cosine of the selected first frequency, 2 cos(2π fd/fSAMP). The initializing the second tone generator comprises analogous initializing processes for associated delay stages and a multiplier.
A first proportionality coefficient equal to the selected first amplitude can be utilized in the initializing steps for the first tone generator, i.e., initializing the associated delay stages, and a second proportionality coefficient equal to the selected second amplitude can be utilized in the analogous initializing steps for the second tone generator. It is noted that the amplitude of the digital complex tone can be adjusted with a multiplier coupled to the digital complex tone, however this would necessitate a complex multiplication for each word, whereas if the selected or desired amplitude is included with initialization values for the delay stages, this multiplication process will not be required.
The method of generating a digital complex tone further comprises iteratively generating a first digital tone with the first tone generator and a second digital tone with the second tone generator 309. More specifically, this includes supplying a clock and clocking the first tone generator and the second tone generator, weighting an output of the first delay stage with the first constant value using the multiplier to provide a multiplier output, inverting the output of the second delay stage to provide an inverter output, and adding, with a first adder, the multiplier output to the inverter output to provide the first digital tone and coupling the first digital tone to an input of the first delay stage. For the second tone generator, performing analogous weighting, inverting, and adding steps to provide the second digital tone is performed.
As depicted in
The processes, apparatus, and systems, discussed above, and the inventive principles thereof can provide a more space efficient approach to generating a digital complex tone than prior art techniques. Using the principles noted above in one or more embodiments that use 24 bit arithmetic yields performance parameters including greater than 70 dB c spur free dynamic range, less that −100 dBc noise floor, greater than 68 dBc image rejection (ability to maintain appropriate phase relation ship between digital tones) and minimal hardware requirements.
This disclosure is intended to explain how to fashion and use various embodiments in accordance with the invention rather than to limit the true, intended, and fair scope and spirit thereof. The foregoing description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Modifications or variations are possible in light of the above teachings. The embodiment(s) was chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principles of the invention and its practical application, and to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. All such modifications and variations are within the scope of the invention as determined by the appended claims, as may be amended during the pendency of this application for patent, and all equivalents thereof, when interpreted in accordance with the breadth to which they are fairly, legally, and equitably entitled.
