If you are characterizing digital devices, you typically would use a pulse generator to provide the signals youneed. However, for low-frequency applications like microcontroller characterization, you can generate low duty-cycle pulses with a relatively inexpensive general-purpose function generator. Today's general-purpose function generators are highly versatile signal sources that typically use some sort of digital signal-generation scheme like direct synthesis. They offer many types of waveforms and frequently havebuilt-in sweep and modulation. Some offer arbitrary waveform generation capability as well. Whilethey typically offer extremely stable frequency andlow distortion, they are not particularly well suited for generating low duty- cycle pulses. Introduction