A 1.2-mW/Channel Pitch-Matched Transceiver ASIC Employing a Boxcar-Integration-Based RX Micro-Beamformer for High-Resolution 3-D Ultrasound Imaging

This article presents a low-power and small-area transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for 3-D trans-fontanelle ultrasonography. A novel micro-beamforming receiver architecture that employs current-mode summation and boxcar integration is used to realize delay-and-sum on an N -element sub-array using N× fewer capacitive...

A Pitch-Matched Transceiver ASIC With Shared Hybrid Beamforming ADC for High-Frame-Rate 3-D Intracardiac Echocardiography

In this article, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for 3-D, high-frame-rate ultrasound imaging probes is presented. The design is the first to combine element-level, high-voltage (HV) transmitters and analog front-ends, subarray beamforming, and in-probe digitization in a scalable fashion for catheter-based probes. The...

A Pitch-Matched Low-Noise Analog Front-End With Accurate Continuous Time-Gain Compensation for High-Density Ultrasound Transducer Arrays

This article presents a compact analog front-end (AFE) circuit for ultrasound receivers with linear-in-dB continuous gain control for time-gain compensation (TGC). The AFE consists of two variable-gain stages, both of which employ a novel complementary current-steering network (CCSN) as the interpolator to realize continuously variable gain....

Large Matrix Array Aperture for 3D Vascular Imaging Capture

Three-dimensional ultrasound has initially been used to address volumetric imaging for diagnostic purposes and represents the leading-edge technological orientation in both transducer and IC (integrated circuit) architecture and design. However, new applications are coming up like biomarker measurements, preoperative navigation, real time...

A Tiled Ultrasound Matrix Transducer for Volumetric Imaging of the Carotid Artery

High frame rate three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging would offer excellent possibilities for the accurate assessment of carotid artery diseases. This calls for a matrix transducer with a large aperture and a vast number of elements. Such a matrix transducer should be interfaced with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for...

Design of an ultrasound transceiver asic with a switching-artifact reduction technique for 3D carotid artery imaging

This paper presents an ultrasound transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) directly integrated with an array of 12 × 80 piezoelectric transducer elements to enable next-generation ultrasound probes for 3D carotid artery imaging. The ASIC, implemented in a 0.18 µm high-voltage Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (HV BCD) process, adopted a...

Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Subdicing on an Ultrasound Matrix Transducer

Over the past decades, real-time three-dimensional (3D) medical ultrasound has attracted much attention since it enables clinicians to diagnose more accurately. This calls for ultrasound matrix transducers with a large number of elements, which can be interfaced with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for data reduction. An...

A Reconfigurable Ultrasound Transceiver ASIC With 24 x 40 Elements for 3-D Carotid Artery Imaging

This paper presents an ultrasound transceiver application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed for 3-D ultrasonic imaging of the carotid artery. This application calls for an array of thousands of ultrasonic transducer elements, far exceeding the number of channels of conventional imaging systems. The 3.6 x 6.8 mm² ASIC...

A Pitch-Matched Front-End ASIC With Integrated Subarray Beamforming ADC for Miniature 3-D Ultrasound Probes

This paper presents a front-end application-specified integrated circuit (ASIC) integrated with a 2-D PZT matrix transducer that enables in-probe digitization with acceptable power dissipation for the next-generation endoscopic and catheter-based 3-D ultrasound imaging systems. To achieve power-efficient massively parallel analog-to-digital...

A Front-End ASIC with Receive Sub-array Beamforming Integrated with a 32 × 32 PZT Matrix Transducer for 3-D Transesophageal Echocardiography

This paper presents a power-and area-efficient front-end application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is directly integrated with an array of 32 × 32 piezoelectric transducer elements to enable next-generation miniature ultrasound probes for real-time 3-D transesophageal echocardiography. The 6.1 × 6.1 mm² ASIC, implemented...