Chapter 5
Signal Generation Fundamentals
©
National Instruments Corporation
5-13
NI PXIe-5450 User Manual
SINAD
Signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SINAD) is the ratio of the rms signal
amplitude to the rms sum of all other spectral components, including the
harmonics but excluding DC. SINAD is usually expressed in dB.
ENOB
Effective number of bits (ENOB) is another way of specifying
signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SINAD). ENOB is calculated using the
following formula:
Note
Assumes the full scale of the DAC is utilized.
The ENOB value is the value of an ideal DAC that is equivalent to the DAC
of the device.
Filtering and Interpolation
All NI signal generators use a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to
generate the signals or waveforms that eventually appear at the output
connector. These generated signals have a number of discrete voltage
levels dependent on the number of bits in the DAC.
A digital waveform must be updated at least twice as fast as the bandwidth
of the desired analog signal to be accurately generated (Shannon's
Sampling Theorem). Even though the theoretical requirement for