http://zen-coding.

org/2011/11/waveform-generator-with-max038/
Waveform generator with MAX038
There are several pieces of workbench any intermediate hobbyst can build. Waveform generator is one
of them.

Design considerations
Unofficial mantra for this project was make it sufficient. Think three basic waveforms (sine, triangle,
square), four settings (frequency, duty cycle, amplitude, DC offset) and upper frequency in range of
few MHz. Built-in frequency meter would be handy. Also no craploads of components please; we are
not building analog synth here. And no DDS yet. This might become another project next year,
unless featuritis brings me to the point where its more practical to spend $500+ on a factory made box.
On the other hand, all related popular analog ICs are now discontinued. And most are/were older than
Mother Earth, like XR2206 or OMG! ICL8038. A notable exception is MAX038 (released 1994).
Big suppliers dont have it anymore. Wanna get one, try less known and second-hand sources: local
stores/hobbysts, Futurlec, Littlediode, eBay. CPP version costs around $20.
As for other nonstandard components, external amplitude/duty cycle control requires fast video type
opamp. LT1364 meets orientational specs (300V/us slew rate, 50MHz gain bandwidth) at +/-8V supply.

Limitations and fixes (when available)

MAX038 datasheet claims 20MHz with banged up but still distinctive triangle/square waves (pages 5,
6). I tried that under stated conditions with three ICs all obtained from different sources and it
looked like OUT stage is clearly lacking bandwidth. Up to 4MHz squares and triangles were OK, then
high-order harmonics went bye-bye after ~11MHz both waveforms looked more or less like sine
wave. This aint show stopper, 4MHz is within my loose specs. Upper frequency in design will be
limited to 10MHz.
Duty cycle (DADJ) and frequency control (IIN, FADJ) arent entirely independent. To keep drift at
minimum, simply dont go near extreme values. If DADJ is stated for [+2.3... -2.3V], use only [+2.0V...
-2.0V] portion of it. The same way, IIN range should be kept away from [3.75uA... 750uA] edges.
Divide both values by two if FADJ is disabled.
Active SYNC output is known to cause dreaded glitch in OUT waveform (page 12). Whats quietly
omitted there is the fact emitted noise/ripple regularly affects internal triangle generator (page 8). It is
connected to SYNC comparator forming a feedback loop. As a result, rising edge of SYNC signal
oscillates until triangle wave rises high enough. Problem is more prominent at lower OUT frequencies.
Both issues can be reduced/eliminated in a first place with proper PCB design: ground plane, close
bypass caps and no stray inductances (long leads, IC socket).

Schematics dissected
Prototyping was all common sense, the art of reading datasheet, opamp math, basic Ohms laws, stuff
like that:

Power supply
PSU design is standard linear. IC1 and IC2 (7808/7908, TO-220 package) provide +/-8V for all
operational amplifiers. IC3 and IC4 (78L05/79L05, TO-92) give +/-5V for MAX038 and frequency
meter components.
Recommended input voltage is +/- 10-15V. Be aware that PSU does not have any special means of
protection. If you want to prevent famous ohnosecond moments like connecting generator to bench
PSU and accidentaly turning it up towards 30V think about dedicated +/-12V supply.

Bypass capacitors, MAX038 pins: V+, V-,DV+

MAX038 requires heavy decoupling. V+, V- and DV+ each have 1nF block cap to pick quick transients
and 1uF tantalum as larger buffer. LT1364 can also pack a punch; its V+/V- pins have single bypass
caps. NE5532s are lot less demanding, though few extra caps wont hurt placements are there in
schematic/PCB, their use is optional.

Waveform selection: pins A0, A1

These two pins accept TTL/CMOS levels. Value 00 select square wave, 01 triangle and 10/11 sine
wave. All three waveforms can be made selectable with three-position SPDT (1-0-2) or rotary switch.
Notes:

relying on opened pins (treated as 1s) is not recommended, therefore both pins
are pulled down with 10k resistors.
its better to use MBB (make before break) switches than BBM (break before
make). With latter waveform shortly changes to square (00) during mechanical
transition between contacts.

2.5V bandgap voltage reference: pin REF

MAX038 offers 2.5 volts at pin REF. This is good basis for supply-independent design. First we
connect REF to inverting opamp (IC6B, A=-1) then use both symmetrical points (+REF, -REF) as
references for frequency, duty cycle and DC offset controls. REF must not be overloaded; maximum
current is 4mA.

Frequency band selection: pins COSC

Frequency spectrum is divided into 7 decade bands from 1-10Hz to 1-10MHz. Each band is slightly
stretched (~10% relative on both sides) to allow for various drifts and tolerances. Active band is
selectable via rotary switch which picks one of capacitors (39pF 47uF) and connects it to pin COSC.
Some observations:

Caps are known to have notorious tolerances and pickin em manually with LCR
meter wont hurt.
smallest capacitor is slightly smaller than calculated (39pF instead of 47pF) to
compensate for parasitic capacitances on PCB.
again, MBB switch is preferred. BBM ones disconnect COSC before contacts
settle down causing frequency to ramp up for fraction of second.

Fine frequency adjustment: pin FADJ

There was no need for it. Contrary to popular assumption 0V/GND does NOT disable FADJ; this
merely leaves it in centered state. The right way means pulling FADJ down to ~-3V with grounded
12k resistor. This has three additional effects: a) frequency doubles up, b) useful IIN range changes to
[2.5 ... 375uA], c) temperature coefficient improves by factor 3. All good.

Coarse frequency adjustment: pin IIN

This control is current-based. We are aiming for [22.5uA... 275uA] which gives desired sweep ratio
(10:1 + 10% overheads = 12.22:1) while keeping edges far enough from max. rated values (in FADJless mode). A good linearity is must-have. This cant be done by simply using pot/resistor connected to
REF. Instead, we use a simple voltage divider to get [+0.2V... +REF], pass that range through amplifier
(IC7A, A=1.33) and burn voltage on fixed 12k resistor connected to IIN.

Duty cycle control: pin DADJ

DADJ control voltage range is [+2.0V... -2.0V], based on [+REF... -REF] and buffered with another
operational amplifier (IC6A). Note that direction is reverted: highest voltage means lowest duty cycle.

PLL pins: PDI, PDO

Unused. PDI is grounded, PDO left open.

DC offset control
Fourth and last slow opamp (IC7B) provides [-REF...+REF] range for DC offset. Thats enough to push
5Vpp signal to [0V... 5V] or [-5V... 0V]. Output is routed to summing fast amplifier.
If we select square wave, max out amplitude and DC offset then OUT will generate TTL-compatible
signal.

Amplitude and DC offset control: pin OUT (?)

A fixed OUT voltage (2Vpp symmetrical) is nerfed with pot. First fast opamp (IC8B, A=2.5) increases
max. amplitude to 5Vpp. It seems like noninverting configuration behaves slightly better than inverting
one above ~4MHz. Feedback resistors have intentionally small values; above 10k slew rate and phase
becomes to suffer. Second fast amplifier (IC8A) sums up signal and DC offset. Given output is then
routed to external BNC connector.

Side note: most of googled schemas use single amp in output stage, probably to keep signal
degradation at minimum. The downside is less natural DC offset control, because it is added BEFORE
amplification.

Pots orientation
There must be psyhcological explanation why people tend to screw up decisions based on only two
choice. Ah yes, theres no third one to cacth onto reference.
In this case, Eagle library didnt have vertical plastic pots (Piher). I created custom library, added
symbol, device, part and miswired A/E pins. Error went all the way through PCB design. Since pots
are soldered directly, fixes were less than aesthetically pleasing. Corrections are added in final
schematic and PCB. Lets check em again:

frequency: higher voltage -> higher current -> higher frequency -> E to +REF, A
to +0.2V
duty cycle: higher voltage -> lower duty cycle -> inverting output (IC8A) ->
higher duty cycle -> E to +2.0V, A to -2.0V
amplitude: greater value -> higher amplitude -> E to OUT, A to GND
DC offset: higher voltage -> greater DC offset -> inverting output (IC8A) ->
smaller DC offset -> E to -REF, A to +REF

Summing amplifier (IC8A) must be of inverting type, which effectively turns waveform upside down.
Duty cycle of 20% actually becomes 80%. Other two waveforms visually dont behave that way; 20%
means triangle will be angled to the left, not right. Because duty cycle control makes the most sense for
square waves, this had been taken as reference.

Frequency meter
F-meter is implemented with PIC16F876 ICs and 216 chars LCD. This PIC model is a bit of overkill,
plenty of pins and 85% of memory remained unused but nevermind. Three routes connect MAX038
and micro: A0->RA0, A1->RA1 and SYNC->RC0. First two give an information about waveform
displayed in first row of LCD. Last one is source for counting. Module TMR0 derives 1-second
timebase from master clock (6.144MHz). TMR1 is configured for async mode with no prescaler; it
counts rising edges of SYNC signal (thats why its important to minimize OUT glitch) and overflows
every 65536 counts. Most of number crunching is done within interrupt handler. Main loop merely
checks for changed values and updates display.
Normally when prescaler is off PIC cannot count above FOsc/4. Looks like that limitation does not
apply here; meter works all the way to 11MHz with 1Hz resolution. I tried to do the same with RTC
4.194 XT crystal and measuring peaked around ~1MHz as expected. Accuracy is of course smaller.
Compared to software-based f-meter in Rigol scope, worst-case deviation is less than 0.1%.
LCD is labeled 1602. Niiice. It has standard dimensions for 162 chars, 1-16 pin layout in top left
corner, HD44780 interface and blue background. Not all hung-lo 1602s have the same pinout; some
have shifted pins 15 and 16, others have 116 pin strip bottom left or 28 sideways etc in any case,
check before buying some.

PCB/case design
Enclosure was kinda handheld-sized (166x100x25mm), meaning all controls had to be soldered
directly on PCB. This greatly affected board layout:
PCB itself is single-sided, 160x93mm with 10 jumpers and ground plane pour. None of ICs has socket
for various reasons; MAX038 and to some extent LT1364 dont like it (search above for stray
inductance), for PIC one there wasnt enough room and NE5532s are dirt cheap.
Rotary switches were kind of tricky. It took me some time to find small enough ones that fit into
enclosure (no-name, just Made in W.Germany. Go figure). Unfortunately their setup was 112
without any setup ring or rotation limiter you can typically find on larger switches a la Lorlin or ELMA
that would let me constraint movement to 13 and 17. I had to solder short raised dummy jumpers
(both ends on ground plane) 2mm in front between pins 3/4 and 7/8 respectively.
Two male pin header connectors exist on board: 16-pin for LCD, 2pin for output signal (via tiny
microphone cable + BNC). Supply connector is 6-pin mini-DIN at bottom left corner.

In action
Although my artistic skills are roughly nil, I was satisfied with final look & feel. Crap picture quality
comes from Nokia cell phone :X:
How generator works in practice? As mentioned before, up to 4MHz results are OK. Then bandwidth
limitation slowly kicks in. Waveforms are stable, controls are linear. OUT glitch does not exist. All fine
within given (analog) limitations.
Things Im occasionally missing are few on/off switches: for powering up and to enable/disable OUT
signal. Regarding usability, large BNC adapters sometimes get in the way of display and controls. And
LCD doesnt have excellent viewing angle so it might take some contrast tweaking to get clear readout
while generator is on the bench