What is the difference between a signal generator and an arbitrary waveform generator

Difference between signal generator and arbitrary waveform generator:

Signal generator is a mathematical method to achieve, but has more demanding directly on the computing power of the microcontroller, and arbitrary waveform generator is achieved by the waveform superposition and frequency synthesis method,has high requirements of the theoretical basis.

There are many types of signal sources, and in terms of signal characteristics, there are sinusoidal signal generator,function generator,arbitrary waveform generator and so on.The importance of sinusoidal signals in frequency domain analysis of linear systems makes the use of sinusoidal signal generators widely available. User requirements for such signal sources are usually wide frequency range, high frequency accuracy and stability, high spectral purity and low phase noise.